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| Monday, October 28 Jayhawks been there, ready to win it all By Jeff Shelman Special To ESPN.com |
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Keith Langford got dogged by a 10-year-old. The kid isn't even old enough for junior high, but he called out the Kansas sophomore. It was August and Langford was hanging out in Lawrence. All of a sudden, the kid came up and asked the kind of question that only a 10-year-old can get away with.
"He came up to me and asked, 'Why couldn't you stop Juan Dixon,'" Langford said. "What was I supposed to say? He was being honest." Brutal. But honest. It was shortly thereafter when Langford watched a tape of the national semifinals for the first time. After the Jayhawks lost to Maryland in Atlanta at the 2002 Final Four -- a game in which Dixon went off for a smooth 33 points -- Langford wanted to simply forget about it. He lived it, he didn't need to see it again. He didn't even watch the Terrapins defeat Indiana in the title game. But with the prompting of the 10-year-old, Lanford watched the tape. And what did he see? "I did get exposed," Langford said. "Maryland was on a mission. I was trying to guard Juan Dixon and I couldn't shut him down." The loss to the Terrapins was not how Kansas '01-02 wanted to be remembered. After all, the Jayhawks became the first Big 12 team to ever go undefeated in the league. They led the nation in scoring. But they trailed the Terps by 20 points in the second half of the national semifinals before a late rally. "There is no way you can forget about being so close," Wayne Simien said. "We still accomplished so much, but still the things that people remember are the things that happened against Maryland. It just rings in your ears, and I took that to heart this summer and the offseason and worked really hard. We are going to do everything we can to get back to the Final Four." If anything, the loss might have taught the Kansas players the difference between simply getting to the Final Four in March and cutting down the nets on a Monday night in April. "They were on us from the beginning, they played with a sense of urgency and I think we learned that," Langford said. "If we want to be that good, we have to play with a sense of urgency from the jump. If we do that we'll be fine." And if the Jayhawks promise to do that, they deserve to be the No. 1 team in the country in November. While it sounds a little hokey to believe that a team has to experience the Final Four to win it, it has been the recent trend. Yes, some coach can stroll into the Superdome in April and measure the height of the rims and the distance to the free throw line the way Gene Hackman did in Hoosiers. And that coach will find that the measurements in New Orleans are the same as those in Lawrence or Norman or Tucson or even little Hickory, Ind., but there's still something about seeing first-hand what it takes to win a national title. Couple that with returing seniors and good things have happened. Consider:
With Oklahoma also having reached last season's Final Four, Kansas certainly doesn't have a monopoly on experience, but can the Jayhawks turn last year's disappointment into a championship? Well, Kansas coach Roy Williams certainly has some experienced parts. While Drew Gooden and his 19.8 points per game are in the NBA, Kansas returns a senior duo, three starters and five players who saw significant minutes a year ago.
Kirk Hinrich has developed in into one of the most complete guards in the country, a player who can both handle the ball and score. After two years at the point, he moved to the wing last year and thrived, averaging 14.8 points per game and shooting more than 47.8 percent on three-pointers. Nick Collison was somewhat overlooked a year ago because of the play of Gooden. Did anyone on a top 10 team average a more quiet 15.6 points per game a year ago? As was the case with Gooden last season, expect Collison to become more than just an inside banger this season. With Simien around to do some of the grunt work inside, expect Collison to play a little more facing the basket. He's not going to become a small forward, but he'll certainly take some mid-range jumpers. A question mark as a freshman, point guard Aaron Miles showed he's quite capable of running the Kansas offense. He made good decisions last season, pushing the ball when the fast break was there and running offense when it wasn't. The biggest challenge for Miles this year is that he needs to become more of an offensive threat with the graduation of Jeff Boschee. He averaged fewer than two 3-point attempts per game, a number that won't be enough this year. "That's why I worked so hard over the summer on my shooting," said Miles, last year's best Big 12 freshman not named T.J. Ford. "I believe I can do it. Add Simien, a bruising inside player and Langford, maybe the Jayhawks best on-the-ball defender, and Williams has a starting five that matches up favorably with any in the country. Therein lies the rub. While the KU starters are impressive, that's all that's certain about the Jayhawks. "We have five guys who have proven they can do it at this level," Williams said. "It's going to be a big challenge for us as a staff and for those other kids to find somebody else that can step up and be successful. I think that will be the key to our team: to see how well we can find that sixth and seventh and eighth guy that you need in college basketball. And if we can do that, we've got a chance to have some fun this year." What does that mean? It means that junior forward Bryant Nash and sophomore guard Michael Lee have to become more than just a bit player. It means that junior college transfer Jeff Graves -- who ate his way into Williams doghouse over the summer -- has to get himself in shape to play forward at Kansas' dizzying pace. And it means all of the perimeter players have to be a threat from the outside. "I'm confident those guys will step up, but until they do, people are going to question if they can or not," Hinrich said. "So far everyone has worked their butts off. I think everyone is ready to go." Oh, and as for the knock on Williams' teams being kings of the regular season who can't get it done in March? Well, that is becoming less and less accurate. Kansas hasn't lost to a lower-seeded team in any of the past four tournaments and Williams earned some sort of vindication after reaching the Final Four last year. Some would say that the Jayhawks are due to win the whole thing. Williams enters this season with the highest winning percentage of any active Division I coach with at least six years of experience, so there's no question he knows what he's doing. But of the coaches in the top 10 only he, Cincinnati's Bob Huggins, Syracuse's Jim Boehim, Utah's Rick Majerus and John Chaney of Temple haven't won a national title. The other six are pretty heady company: Mike Krzyzewski, Lute Olson, Rick Pitino, Bob Knight and Tom Izzo. Maybe it's Kansas' time. The Jayhawks have experience. They have desire. They have a senior duo. And they certainly have talent. Jeff Shelman of the Minneapolis Star Tribune (www.startribune.com) is a regular contributor to ESPN.com |
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