Sometimes basketball can be an anomaly parading as a paradox wrapped in irony. How else can you explain what happened in the final 19 seconds on Sunday afternoon at the Devaney Center?
Kansas snapped a three-game road losing streak with a 78-74 victory over Nebraska, yet who knows what would have happened if the basketball hadn’t bounced like a football in the waning moments?
| Kansas | 36 | 42 | 78 |
| Nebraska | 31 | 43 | 74 |
Attendance: 12,104
Twice a Kansas player missed the second of two free throw attempts and both times the ball bounced hard off the rim and right into the mitts of a player in a blue uniform.
“That kind of ended the game,” Nebraska coach Barry Collier said. “That essentially took away our chance to score twice in the last 15 seconds.”
Nebraska guard Cary Cochran was more descriptive.
“It kind of threw dirt on our coffin, so to speak,” said Cochran who had teamed with fellow guard Cookie Belcher in a three-point goal barrage that made it seem like the Cornhuskers wouldn’t be buried after all.
Belcher, too, was bummed by the erratic caroms of those errant KU charities.
“They seemed to bounce right to them,” said Belcher who scored a career-high 29 points while matching the school record for three-pointers with seven. “The ball took a crazy bounce. That’s how they got it.”
With :19 showing, Nick Collison stepped to the line for a one-and-one with Kansas nursing a 74-71 lead. Collison hit the crucial first attempt, but clanged the second right into the paws of teammate and roommate Kirk Hinrich.
“That first one that Hinrich saved in there was really a heads-up play,” NU coach Collier said.
Of course, the Huskers had to foul Hinrich and he stepped to the line with :13.2 on the clock. Same scenario. Hinrich drilled the first, then clanked the second and who should retrieve it but Collison who immediately flung the ball out to Hinrich who was fouled at :08.0. This time, eschewing the established format, Hinrich swished both shots for a 78-71 lead that made Belcher’s three-pointer at :O2.3 moot.
In the final analysis, though, Kansas didn’t secure this badly needed road victory so much because the ball bounced crazily on those last-second free throws. Kansas won this one, in large part, because of Eric Chenowith. That’s right. I said Eric Chenowith.
Look at Chenowith’s line and you’ll see he scored only six points. In this case, however, it wasn’t how many points Chenowith scored, but when he scored them. The senior seven-footer canned three baskets in the last 7 1/2 minutes and each one muffled Nebraska’s largest crowd of the season.
They weren’t stick-backs, either. Sometimes, in fact, watching Chenowith try to stick an offensive rebound back can be dangerous to your mental health. These were short jumpers inside the circle and along the baseline.
What had Chenowith been doing for the first 32 1/2 minutes? Mostly, he’d been the tallest cheerleader in the Devaney Center. He picked up two fouls before the game was two minutes old. Then, after leading cheers for awhile, Chenowith went back in and picked up No. 3 at the 7:36 mark. Oops, back to the pom-pon squad.
While he was on the floor, Chenowith had to listen to a chant that has become all too familiar when the Jayhawks play on the road. Cheno-worthless. Cheno-worthless. Cheno-worthless.
And he was, too, until the last 7 1/2 minutes when he sapped the Huskers’ momentum with those three critical baskets. Nobody was hollering Cheno-worthless then.
So let’s give Chenowith a pat on the back. He has played some real stinkeroos on the road in the past last December’s one-point performance at Wake Forest comes quickly to mind and Sunday was shaping up as still another clunker until he stepped up and played like a senior is supposed to play.
At the same time, let us not overlook Hinric. The sophomore point guard is, without question, the most improved player in the Big 12 Conference this season. If he doesn’t earn second-team All-Big 12 point guard behind Iowa State’s Jamaal Tinsley, there is no justice.
Hinrich scored 20 points and tied a career-high with 11 assists. A measure of a player’s ability is how a team performs without him and, thankfully, Hinrich has avoided injury because, even with a healthy Drew Gooden, the player the Jayhawks can least afford to lose is Hinrich.
Three-point goals: 7-18 (Gregory 3-5, Hinrich 3-5, Boschee 1-5, Collison 0-1, Axtell 0-2). Assists: 22 (Hinrich 11, Boschee 6, Gregory 3, Chenowith, Carey). Turnovers: 18 (Collison 4, Chenowith 4, Hinrich 4, Gregory 2, Boschee 2, Carey 2). Blocked shots: 6 (Collison 5, Carey). Steals: 6 (Gregory 2, Hinrich 2, Boschee, Carey). |
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Three-point goals: 12-27 (Belcher 7-11, Cochran 4-9, Robinson 1-3, Fields 0-1, Augustine 0-1, Conklin 0-2). Assists: 18 (Cochran 4, Fields 3, Robinson 3, Bradford 2, Belcher 2, Ffriend 2, Augustine 2). Turnovers: 12 (Ffriend 6, Belcher, Fields, Thomas, Robinson, Boeker, Conklin). Steals: 10 (Belcher 4, Cochran 3, Bradford, Boeker, Wortmann). |
