KU helped Big 12 save some face

By Chuck Woodling     Mar 17, 2001

Earl Richardson/Journal-World Photo
KU's Brett Ballard, right, and CSN's Joey Busch scrap over a rebound.

? Well, thank you very much, Kansas. You saved the Big 12 Conference from becoming the laughingstock of the radio talk shows, although some snickering is inevitable.

Oh, and while you were at it, Kansas, you also saved face for the NCAA Tournament’s No. 4 seeds.

All in all, not a bad night’s work, Jayhawks. That 99-75 crunching of Cal State Northridge in the first round of the NCAA Midwest Regional on Friday night at the Dayton Arena was soothing salve for the Big 12 in particular.

Kansas was the last of the six conference teams to play in the NCAA Tourney, and if the Jayhawks had performed like the other five they might have been on the way back to Lawrence today.

To say the other five teams did not distinguish themselves is an understatement. Only the stock market had worse days on Thursday and Friday than the Big 12 did.

Iowa State was stunned by Hampton the school, not the hotel chain prompting some press room wags to wonder if the Big 12 office had to power to take back Larry Eustachy’s coach of the year award. Iowa State won the Big 12 regular-season title, then was bamboozled by Baylor in the first round of the league tourney before the Hampton debacle. The Cyclones’ demise is harder to explain than President Bush’s proposed tax cut proposals.

Down, too, went Oklahoma State and Texas and then Oklahoma. Texas coach Rick Barnes whined when the NCAA handed the Longhorns a No. 6 seed, then his team went out and stunk it up against Temple. A few hours later, Big 12 tourney champion OU was humbled by Indiana State.

Yes, Missouri won on Thursday but by a mere two points over Georgia, and the Tigers have to play, gulp, Duke today.

Thus when Kansas went to the mats on Friday night, the Big 12 owned an embarrassing 1-4 record in the tournament. I don’t know where Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg was on Friday afternoon he wasn’t in Dayton but if I were him I would have been watching a tennis dual in College Station or an equestrian meet in Manhattan.

Oklahoma, as you may know, and Kansas were both No. 4 seeds and No. 4 seeds had not be performing with fortitude in this tourney. UCLA won, but barely, over Hofstra, but Kent State shocked Indiana and, as noted, the Sycamores made the Sooners sick.

Cal State Northridge coach Bobby Braswell must have been licking his chops on Friday afternoon, yet he downplayed any notion he considered recent history foreshadowing.

“We watched some of those games,” Braswell said. “We saw Kent State beat Indiana, but that’s part of March Madness. You people might have a hard time believing that 65 teams believe the ball is going to bounce their way. Losing’s not fun 13th, fourth or fifth seed, it doesn’t matter.”

I believe that 65 teams believe the ball will bounce their way, but I don’t believe a No. 13 seed takes a defeat harder than a No. 4 seed. Kansas players and coaches would have been crushed if they had lost to the Matadors. Sure, the Matadors weren’t happy on Friday, but as Braswell said afterward: “This has been a wonderful experience for these guys.”

Earlier in the day, while watching the Tennessee-UNC Charlotte game on televsion, I heard CBS analyst Rick Pitino say he thought Cal State Northridge had a real chance to add Kansas to the growing junkpile of higher-seeded tourney teams.

Pitino probably wasn’t alone. Teams with the quickness and athleticism of a CS Northridge almost always give the Jayhawks trouble. That’s no secret. At the same time, though, you’d better be able to neutralize Kansas inside, and, as it turned out, the Matadors had the worst interior defense since the day after the Spartans accepted that Trojan horse.

Kansas players, for the most part, said they were unaware of what had happened to the other No. 4 seeds in this year’s Large Cotillion.

“I didn’t know anything about that,” KU guard Jeff Boschee said. “I just knew Cal State Northridge was a good team.”

Added forward Nick Collison: “I saw all kinds of upsets, but they’re not really upsets. Teams are so much on the same level now.”

Now that the field has been narrowed to 32, Collison’s words are prophetic. Maybe the ball will bounce right for Kansas on Sunday afternoon against Syracuse. Perhaps it won’t. Whatever, Kansas saved the Big 12 some big-time face on Friday. Thank goodness.

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