What a difference a year makes.
Last year, Kirk Hinrich was a freshman at Kansas University, learning a new campus and the intricacies of a new basketball program and coach.
By the end of the season, the 6-3 guard from Sioux City, Iowa, was named the team’s most improved player and played one of his strongest games in the Jayhawks’ season finale.
“Freshman year’s really tough new surroundings, new coach, and everything it’s a really tough transition,” he said. “I think most people do improve a lot between freshman and sophomore year and I find that I’ve improved a lot as well.”
Some of Hinrich’s improvement was evident in KU’s 69-64 loss to Duke in the second-round of the NCAA tournament.
Playing against another heralded freshman point guard, Jason Williams, Hinrich played solid defense and tied his career high with 12 points.
“That helps my confidence,” he said, “playing well against a great player like Jason, and the more confident you are the better you’re probably going to play.”
Hinrich has also gained confidence as his role with the team has increased. After playing more than 20 minutes three times in the Jayhawks’ first 20 games, he played no fewer than 20 minutes in the last 14 games of the season, including starting nods in the final 13.
“I think basically my role changed a during the season last year,” he said. “At the first of the year I was just backing up and giving help when needed and at the end of the season they needed me to step up more and I think I have to do that more this year.
“I just feel so much more comfortable with my game right now than I did last year coming in,” he added, “knowing what’s going to happen, having a feeling of how practice is going and how the wear and tear of the season will affect my body. I feel more confident that way, knowing what’s ahead of me.”
Not only does Hinrich have a better idea about this year, he has a lot of familiar faces around him.
“I think I know what most of the guys are going to do most of the time, just learning from experience and playing,” he said. “There shouldn’t be much change. Hopefully, it will be picking up where we left off”.
Hinrich said the year of experience will help his conditioning as well. He wasn’t too surprised with the pace of the college game his freshman year, but had problems playing as much as he might have liked for other reasons.
“I was playing a lot of minutes last year but that doesn’t bother me,” he said. “You want to be in the game the whole time so, hopefully, I can stay out of foul trouble. That was a big problem last year but I think I’ve gotten a lot smarter in that area, where I can stay away from those silly fouls and stay in the game longer.”
Another aspect Hinrich wants to work on is improving his 1.4 turnover-to-assist ratio.
“I think my decision-making will be improved greatly because of the experience last year I got in the tournament and throughout the year and I should be cutting out the stupid mistakes I made last year,” he said.
Even with those mistakes, Hinrich led the team in assists with 123, the fourth most for a KU freshman. As well as looking to increase that total, he wants his 5.5 scoring average to climb this season.
“I think I need to be aggressive offensively,” he said. “I think last year at times I wasn’t aggressive and our team somehow got out of sync. If I’m aggressive and I’m attacking the lane and taking open shots that’s just another weapon.”
Hinrich spent the summer working on all facets of his game.
“I basically worked on everything,” he said. “My strength, my ball handling, my long-distance shooting and my in-between shooting. I tried to make myself better all around.”
He also spent part of the summer concerned about coach Roy Williams’ possible departure to North Carolina before Williams decided to stay.
Considering Hinrich had been coached by his father, Jim, from third grade through high school graduation, another new coach would have created an extremely difficult situation.
“I don’t know what I would have done,” Hinrich said. ” I was worried that we were going to lose him. The first year with a new program and a new coach is tough and you don’t want to experience that again.”
