Jeff Boschee did not consider any drastic measures like shaving his head to combat his recent shooting slump.
“No, I never did,” said Boschee, Kansas’ junior guard who snapped an 8-for-43 three-point skid by hitting four threes in Saturday’s 69-61 victory at Oklahoma.
In fact, Boschee, who hit 41.5 percent of his threes with a bald head last year, on Tuesday said he’ll never take a razor to his scalp again.
Until this season, he’d gone bald since his freshman year in high school.
“I got sick of shaving it and wanted something new,” Boschee said of growing hair last summer and keeping it. “You can’t go with a bald head your whole life.”
Boschee is hoping his shooting woes are a thing of the past.
“The biggest thing is footwork,” said Boschee, who must be set when he shoots. “I talked to my brother (Mike, assistant coach at Gustavus Adolphus) Thursday before the Oklahoma game. He told me, ‘Don’t worry. It’s not a big deal. Keep firing.’ He gave me the idea of looking at film.”
Boschee watched films of games against Xavier and Georgia where he was on fire at last year’s Great Alaska Shootout. He compared those tapes with his 1-of-6 effort in the Texas Tech game and deduced he was hopping on his jumpers.
“I’ve worked a lot on the shot and it’s felt good at practice,” he said.
KU coach Roy Williams tried to phone ex-Jayhawk Greg Ostertag Tuesday. Ostertag has served a one-game suspension with the Utah Jazz. He was penalized for skipping a practice in response to coach Jerry Sloan pulling him near the end of a recent game against the Lakers.
“I did try to call just to make sure he’s all right,” Williams said.
Of the Big O’s problems, Williams said: “Jerry Sloan is very tough, vocal. He gets after Greg. So did I. It’s not anything new. I have a tremendous respect for him and love Greg.
“The biggest thing I’d tell him (Ostertag) is, ‘You have to be concerned about helping that team.’ I think if everybody at every level thought like that there’d be less problems between players and coaches.”
KU leads the nation in field goal percentage. The Jayhawks are hitting 52 percent of their shots. Second is Villanova at 51.6 percent. Nebraska is fourth at 51 percent.
KU coach Williams was asked by a reporter if he’d ever heard of a player with a more unique name than Nebraska’s Cookie Belcher.
Stunned by the question, Williams did come up with a memory regarding the name, “Cookie.”
‘”Cookie, Cookie, lend me your comb.’ That’s the first TV program my sister used to watch on TV. That was the line in the show. I was too little, too young to know what it was.”
“It is a pretty unusual name, Cookie,” KU’s Boschee said. “I don’t know if it’s his real name. I hope it’s not his real name.”
It’s not. Belcher’s actual first name is Segado.
KU coach Williams was thinking about giving workhorse Kirk Hinrich a breather in the second half of Saturday’s win at Oklahoma.
“I said, ‘I think I’ll get Jeff and Kirk out for a breather so I don’t have to do it down the stretch,'” Williams said. “Two assistant coaches said, ‘He’ll be all right.”‘
So Williams left Hinrich in the game.
“When Kirk gave me the tired signal with 4 minutes, 12 to go, I turned and looked at two assistant coaches who were getting under those benches as fast as they could. I was ready to kill both of ’em,” Williams quipped.
