Tom, nice summary of an unfortunate evening in Mancrappin. Jayhawks, time to bounce back and start another streak. Taking care of business with a National Championship ring will make this a somewhat tolerable game and we will all be able to say, Oh yea, that trash that happened in Mancrappin. ROCK, CHALK!!!!!

I am still upset with this loss! This was exactly like the UCLA game in the NCAA's last year. We played stupid!
And we didn't "man up"! Beasley called out the KU players, and they didn't show up! That's what ticks me off the most, is that our older players got shown up by their kids! Yeah, the officiating sucked, but our players did not show any intestinal fortitude, and even less brains! Late in the game when we were down by around ten, Mario had a wide open three, and instead he drives toward Beasley and ends up kicking the ball out of bounds! And where the hell was Rush the second half??? Their stars stepped up! ......Ours disappeared!
Maybe I am overreacting, but it makes me wonder if KU has the guts and toughness to win it all!

Our guys looked pressured emotionally. They hadn't faced a team and an environment like that all year. And it really showed on the offensive end, with KU rushing shots and not making extra passes. Very disappointing for an experienced team. The weakness of this team, and every team has one, continues to be half-court offense.
I think Collins' injury might be one of the worst things to happen to this team. Last year he stepped up in big games..he loved the opportunity. He obviously doesn't have the jets to do that at this point. Brandon and Mario don't have his desire to be the man. At this point, I don't know if they ever will, although Rush did take on that role in last year's NCAAs.
All that being said, KU fans, this is just one game. This season has a lot of twists and turns left, as KSU will find out. So long to the Streak and the Undefeated season. But this team still has it eyes set on a bigger prize. One loss or win does not a season make. Remember, the last KU team to reach the Final Four lost at Colorado.

Does anyone else think it's weird that the KSU players call their coach "Frank?"

This loss was bound to happen. Don't worry, we'll beat them in AFH.

Settle down guys. I actually went out and CELEBRATED last night. Seriously. I mean this only happens once every 25 years! That means 2 things. 1: I'll be 50 next time the Hawks lose in Manhattan. And 2: When KU wins the National Championship this year the only kids who will remember this game will be the lonely wildcats.

Ready to Rock Chalk strong for another quarter century.

Let them celebrate. After this year when Beasley and Walker are gone, it will be right back to the crapper for KSU.

kline: you really thought Collins looked bad last night? We must have been watching different games. I actually commented that he appears to have his quick first step back - he was cutting through the lane like he used to.

Yeah, it sucks that we lost....but NOW on here there's talk that we "don't have what it takes?"

Did you just start watching basketball last week or something? Great teams lose all the time. No big deal to have ONE LOSS going into February.

Take a deep breath. We're fine.

It must be the air here in Denver that keeps us confident milehigh. I'm not at all worried. How many did Florida lose last year?

I don't think people are worried that we lost, I saw this coming, it's the way we lost. Whoever said this was like UCLA hit it right on the head. This was a case of us getting flustered. We haven't proven that we can win the tight one on the road, and don't give me GT that was a 13 point game with 3 min left, we just hung on, we didn't win it. I am completely at end's with how we just ignored our presence inside. Why didn't we get it down low and go right at their bigs. We had the size and strength advantage. You can't tell me that Beasley and Walker can defend our bigs that well. Look at a 3 min stretch in the first half when we kept throwing it down to Kaun, Walker had no shot, why didn't we keep doing this. i love our guards but they aren't ready to compete in the big game. When we get in a pickle all they should do is throw it down low instead of dribbling around the perimeter and throwing the ball away. Bill better get them to settle down in tough situations otherwise we are a great team that loses in the Elite 8 again. We have the talent to cut down the nets but it won't happen unless we play with more poise. Do you think the teams we will see in march are going to be any worse than KSU, I don't, we had better be ready for teams like UCLA, Tenn, UNC, & Memphis, because it will be 40 min of this all over again.

You make a good point, milehigh. As great as KU has looked all year, they hadn't played even close to an elite-level team yet, and they had been in virtually no close games. Although KU managed to pull it out at USC, it was an extremely ugly win with 22 turnovers. It is a bit concerning that KU seems to panic a little when it can't dominate teams.

I still think KU has a pretty good chance to make the Final Four, but they have to show more poise and better judgment at the end of close games. Displayhawk cites a perfect example: Mario not taking the three near the end of the game. I mentioned that same type of thing under one of the other articles. They don't seem to have enough of a sense of score and time to know when to abandon the 2-pointers and start shooting threes. They did that at the end of the UCLA game as well.

As painful as that loss to Arizona in '97 was, at least KU cut the lead from 13 with 2:30 to go to 3 and had a chance to tie the game. The reason was because they were coming back with threes. If KU doesn't even ATTEMPT to take threes when they're behind by a fairly large amount, how are they going to have any chance of making a big comeback?

JUST WAIT UNTIL FOOTBALL SEASON

THE FOLLOWING IS A POST BY JBURTIN. I WAS KIND OF UPSET READING IT BUT WITH SOME REFLECTION HAD TO ADMIT IT'S ENTIRELY TRUE. INCIDENTALLY, ILL PROBABLY PLASTER THIS IN SEVERAL PLACES, SO IF YOU DONT LIKE IT MOVE ON.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, HERE'S THE WISDOM:

"People talk about getting revenge in Allen Fieldhouse. Sure, our players might win the game, maybe even win it big, but I hope it burns in their minds that they were supposedly one of the best KU teams in the past 24 years, yet they were also the only KU team in 24 years to go to Manhattan and get owned by an 18 year old punk kid with a big mouth.

We have guys that are the same size and speed as Beasley. He just works hard at his game instead of expecting the name on his jersey to win the game for him. Maybe our basketball players need to watch a few reruns of our football games this year and figure out what really makes a champion.

We've played some decent basketball this year, and won some good games, but this is one Jayhawk that is sick and tired of hearing about over-hyped KU teams that never back up their talk with wins when it matters the most.

It either time to bring home a banner, or quit patting ourselves on the back for how great we are. 20 years since our last championship is not the elite level basketball we claim to play."

-JBurtin

I agree with a lot that; some good points. We just need to play tougher, ksucks got in our face last night and really played some D and we didn't step up. Darrell and Sasha played their guts out though, we need to get mean and really start punishing other teams. Learn from this and get better. Beak 'em

jross, Beasley is hardly a "punk kid". He backed it up. I do agree, however, that besides amazing talent, he works very hard, as did his teammates. A lesson is to be learned from that. The jury is out on whether this edition of the Jayhawks is one one of the best ever. No matter what happened at Manhattan, or what happens in Lawrence in the rematch, or what happens in Austin...the story of this team will be told in March, as it is for all teams with legitimate Final Four hopes.

I don't know how good this team really is. I don't know if this team is tough enough mentally to bully their way deep into the tournament. One thing I do know, it takes six wins to cut down the nets in April, and one performance like this, we won't be the ones doing the cutting.

We lost that game because our defense spent too much effort shutting down Beasley and not enough on playing our style defense. The guards held back to stop the ball from getting inside, it opened up the 3 point shot and took away the steals that have won us 20 games.

We should have maned up on everyone, if Beasley had a great game 1 on 1 against our bigs, we would have made up for it with the turnovers our guards would have forced.

We were out of possition on rebounding because everyone kept collapsing on Beasley. We didn't get the steals we normally get because the guards were holdig back to help double up on Beasley and Walker.