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Friday, November 28, 2008

Collins learns from playing more minutes

By Gary Bedore

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Chances are, if you watched Jayhawk basketball in the 1990s, you remember the play: Greg Ostertag stealing the ball, lumbering up the court, dribbling behind his back to maneuver past a defender, and dunking the ball. But do you remember the opponent? It was Coppin State, who the Jayhawks play Friday for the first time since Ostertag's magical moment. Here's video of the play and a recap of the game from the 6News report from Dec. 7, 1994.

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You’ll never hear Sherron Collins — who came off the bench his first two seasons at Kansas University — complain about playing too many minutes in any single game.

“It’s fun to go 40, especially in a game like that where it’s competitive and there’s something on the line and we have to get stops and there’s a grind to it,” the 5-foot-11, 200-pound junior point guard said Thursday.

He was reflecting on playing 40 of 45 minutes in Tuesday’s 89-81 overtime loss to Syracuse in the finals of the CBE Classic.

“I was pretty tired, got a little gassed, but no excuses,” said Collins, who led KU in scoring for the fourth straight game with 21 points, but also committed three second-half turnovers and missed a 15-foot fadeaway jump shot to close regulation.

“It didn’t have an effect on what I did,” he added of fatigue. “I just made a couple bonehead plays. I didn’t keep my poise as much as I should.”

Collins — he’ll welcome as many minutes as possible during today’s 7 p.m. nonconference home clash against Coppin State — said more than anything he regrets exhibiting bad body language late in the Syracuse game. It’s why he accepted total blame for the loss in a postgame interview session.

“It’s my team. I’m captain of the team, the leader. Speaking for myself, I got frustrated. Once I get frustrated, I let it show. I can’t do that. When I get frustrated it goes to the rest of the team,” Collins said. “I can’t let them see me do that, especially a young group like that.”

Freshman guard Tyshawn Taylor, who scored a career-high 17 points in 36 minutes, could tell Collins was steamed at himself during the second half and part of overtime.

“I was trying to say something to him on the bench. He was in a zone. He was just ready to play. He wanted to win so bad,” Taylor said. “I felt like he tried to take the game over by himself. He was a little frustrated.”

Like Collins, Taylor said he grew fatigued near the end of the long game.

“I was so tired,” he said. “I played a lot the game before (25 minutes on Monday in victory over Washington). Coming out in the overtime is when it really got me.”

Of course, like Collins, he welcomes all the playing time he can get.

“I mean it probably would have been fun if we would have won,” Taylor said of the extended minutes. “It wasn’t that fun because we lost.”

KU coach Bill Self said Collins probably learned a valuable lesson in working a career-high 40 minutes Tuesday. His previous high was 34 in the national title game versus Memphis, also overtime.

“I think he learned you’ve got to pick your spots when you get fatigued,” Self said. “Although he won’t admit to this, one of his greatest strengths and trademarks is he’s stubborn, like most good players. When things weren’t going well, he really wanted to show he could turn it around.

“Sometimes when things aren’t going well, it’s best to just make sure we have a good possession.

“This is all new. He has confidence in the other guys, but he doesn’t have more confidence in them than he does in himself. He’s used to playing with those older kids (last season). If he’s going through a rut, obviously he could defer. He probably doesn’t feel he can defer too much, which is not all bad. We can all learn from the other night. He’s played pretty well so far, but he had a rough three or four minutes.”

Collins — team leader that he is — says he is gaining confidence in his younger teammates all the time.

“Tyshawn came to light. The twins came to light. It shows we are going to be all right,” he said. “We were up 11, 13 at times. Once we get a team down, we have to put our foot on them and stop letting them breathe. We’ve got to take that from that game.”

— Assistant sports editor Gary Bedore can be reached at 832-7186.

Comments

JHawkinGA (anonymous) says...

The equation is very simple: Big Macs in the Summer + Sherron = Loss. Mr. Collins must get in shape - he was out "enduranced" by Flynn and Sherron's guts were on the floor come the 2nd half. Let's see if Sherron is running the steps of Allen on Friday.

November 28, 2008 at 12:32 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

geniusmannumber1 (anonymous) says...

Sherron's in the best shape of his career. A better equation is miss half your free throws = loss.

November 28, 2008 at 9:06 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

jaybate (anonymous) says...

JHawkinGA,

I see your logic, but I think it is not that simple.

I don't recall any KU PG being asked to do it all. By all I mean:

Bring the ball up the floor.
Set the half court offense in motion.
Take 15-20 shots per game.
Score 20 ppg.
Be the three point shooter.
Be the go to guy.
Be the guy who can create on offense.
Be the guy you put on the wing to come off screens with the game on the line.
Team leader.
On the wood coach.
Defend one of the top two opposing perimeter players.

Even Jo Jo White had Delvy Lewis to bring the ball up most of the time.

Vaughn never had to be the outside shooter.

Hinrich did a ton of things, but he had Collison sharing the scoring load equally and on many nights scoring more.

Kevin Pritchard was asked to do a lot, but he had Manning to be the scoring leader.

Frankly, I'm not sure a guard, even one's as good as Pritchard, and Hinrich and Collins, CAN feasibly do it all every night. Derrick Rose, Mr. NBA Numero Uno, sure couldn't even on the few nights he was asked to supercede CDR.

I think Self at some point has to consciously tell the team, that the bigs have shoulder a bigger share of the scoring for this team to take it to the next level. Not a huge increase mind you, but something like 5ppg. Sherron needs to be cut back to 15 points a game and the three bigs--Cole, Kieff, and Marcus have to be thought of as a composite Danny Manning capable of delivering 25-30ppg.

Making this choice means Sherron is still the Sarge, still the star, and still the money player at crunch time, when something outside is needed, plus he's still the heart and soul of this team, but...

We have a conservation of energy problem with Sherron and its not the Big Macs causing it. He just is being asked to do too much until the youngsters come around.

You cut his required contribution to from 20ppg to 15 ppg and he'll never run out of gas. Add that 5ppg contribution to Cole/Kieff/Marcus. It just is easier and more reliable to get that 5ppg from those three bigs, and so not risk emptying Sherronatron's tank, as happened against Cuse.

I would hope this redistribution of scoring occurs during the conference season. I don't think Cole, Kieff and Marcus are quite consistent enough to ask them to do it yet.

Frankly, when the three Trees aka C2M get consistent, I suspect instead of getting 5ppg more out of the bigs, we could hope to get a 10ppg more.

Figure our outside shooters finally find the range and Quantum Taylor going amazing from time to time, plus Sherronatron's solid gold 15ppg, and you've got an offensive power house.

November 28, 2008 at 9:41 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

78jayhawkdan (anonymous) says...

I agree that Sherron is required to do a lot. However, I would love to see him learn the point a bit better. He looks more like a Bulls Gordon than Rose. All the young guys have been trying to "create their own shot". I wish we could see a few more assists. How can Sherron make the others better? If not for tenacious Offensive rebounding, poor Cole would get half the points he's been getting. If Sherron keeps shooting, I fear it will be a long season. Seems like most possesions are a hurried secondary fast-break. Slow it down fellas. We got boards. What is our offensive philosophy/identity?

Anyone got a stream link for the game tonight?

November 28, 2008 at 10:09 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

63Jayhawk (anonymous) says...

Gary, just curious as to why you say that Sherron played 40 of 45 minutes. I thought the game was 40 minutes long. Have I Missed something?

November 28, 2008 at 11:06 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

ChicagoJHawk (anonymous) says...

63Jayhawk,

The game was 45 minutes because we went into overtime against Syracuse.

November 28, 2008 at 11:26 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

JJHawq (anonymous) says...

OT

November 28, 2008 at 11:28 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

dagger108 (anonymous) says...

Jaybate - Man interesting thoughts, as usual (thanks), tho your conclusions seem to fly in the face of what Coach Self has been saying for months.

It would be great to see the new players learn the game as Coach wants/insists it must be played to the point where he can trust them in big games. So many people are raging about Releford not playing, but the simple truth is he is still playing elite HS BB, and not elite collegiate/KU BB. The other reality is that Brady is leading the team in assists & A/TO ratio. He didn't have the stats in the Syracuse game, but maybe that had as much to do with Sherron trying to take over the game. Ultimately, that comes back to Sherron trusting his teammates.

The best news is that most of the shortcomings are easily corrected with game experience, which this team still has so very little of. Even so much of Sherron's fabulous experience is negated by a lack of confidence in his teammates. That will be overcome as well.

It's just one early season loss, which we all knew was coming whether to Syracuse or omeone else. Still tons to look forward to.

Rock Chalk

November 28, 2008 at 11:56 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

jaybate (anonymous) says...

dag,

I agree with you on Travis. He is still playing like a ReleFORD and not a Relelincoln. But he will progress.

I hadn't realized Brady was leading A/TO, so that's a hugely germane insight on your part.

November 29, 2008 at 11:46 p.m. ( | suggest removal )