Earl Richardson/Journal-World PhotoDayton, Ohio Jeff Boschee’s stomachache hadn’t dissipated as of mid-afternoon Friday.
“I was going to the bathroom every 10 minutes. The guys were kind of on me about it,” grinned Boschee, who scored 19 points on 4-of-8 three-point shooting in Kansas’ 99-75 first-round NCAA Tournament victory over Cal State Northridge on Friday night at Dayton Arena.
KU’s junior shooting guard has been battling symptoms of dehydration since Tuesday.
“I took a nap after pregame meal and felt OK during the game. Those long TV time outs help a lot,” Boschee said. “The doctor gave me some medicine which I take if it gets too bad.”
Boschee wasn’t the only KU guard to play well Friday.
Brett Ballard hit a three and had four assists while playing a whopping 14 minutes the first half.
He subbed for Kirk Hinrich, who finished with nine assists and seven points, but played just five minutes the first half because of foul woes.
“It was a confidence boost when I hit my first three,” said Ballard, who iced a three at 14:26, giving KU a 17-11 lead.
Hinrich had picked up his second foul at 17:13 and headed to the bench early.
Ballard also fed Kenny Gregory for a highlight-film jam and Drew Gooden for a wide-open layup.
“I think the guys have a lot of confidence in me. They don’t bat an eye when I’m in there,” said Ballard, who came to KU as a walk-on out of Hutchinson CC, but has played a lot of late.
“I thought we moved the ball well all night, not just when I was in there. We got the big guys I don’t know how many touches, but a lot. We get them the ball good things happen,” Ballard said.
Nick Collison had 23 points, Gooden 20 and Kenny Gregory 18, including one three.
Gooden hit a three-pointer that started a first-half ending 17-0 run. It was a stretch in which he played small forward.
“When I’m playing inside, that’s not my job. But if I’m playing small forward and it’s in the flow of the offense, I’ll shoot that shot,” Gooden said.
Ballard was fouled hard on the right shoulder by Northridge’s Marco McCain with 4:10 left. Ballard calmly hit two free throws, despite feeling pain in his right shoulder.
Ballard was examined by a KU team doctor after the game.
“I went up and caught it a bit. The doctor said there’s nothing wrong. It’s OK,” Ballard said.
Collison wore a thick elbow pad on his right shooting elbow.
He said he “popped the bursa sac” on his elbow last season. He has fluid on the elbow from time to time.
“I did it last season and I guess it never healed. The pain is annoying sometimes when it’s swollen,” Collison said. “It’s no big deal.”
KU hit 37 of 61 shots for 60.7 percent. KU made nine of 18 threes. “Basically our offense clicked,” Gooden said. “They didn’t have an answer for our offense. If we’d have made some stops it might have been a blowout.”
Northridge hit 13 of 30 threes.
Gooden didn’t talk any trash to Northridge’s Brian Heinle after blocking Heinle’s shot in the early going. Heinle reportedly said he “felt sorry” for whoever had to play the Matadors in the first round.
“I didn’t say anything. Do you think I’m Kevin Garnett or something?” Gooden joked. “The way we play on the court is our mouthpiece.”
KU seemed to play better in its man-to-man defense than the point zone. KU had to play much zone Friday because of foul and injury problems.
“We are a man-to-man team,” Hinrich said. “We play the point (zone) when we are in foul trouble. We are a better man-to-man team. We have to work harder on stopping the wide open shot against the zone.”
Collison who hit six of seven shots the first half for 12 points on scoring the first six points of the game:
“I try to be someone the team can count on,” Collison said. “It wasn’t a matter of trying to score or anything. The guys did a great job of passing the ball to the big men inside. The biggest thing is taking advantage of our size. We haven’t always done that. We did it tonight.
“It really feels great to play like this. It’s a new season and time to play our best ball. We struggled a little in Kansas City (Big 12 tournament) and people were not talking about us. Rick Pitino (analyst) today was saying we might have our hands full with Cal State Northridge. I don’t think we’ve ever been worried. We just have to play hard, have fun and play well.”
There had been some talk of dissension on the team during KU’s Big 12 loss to Oklahoma.
The players met alone in the locker room for a time after a practice in Lawrence earlier in the week.
“I spoke up and said we had to play together, we had to stick together,” Gregory said. “All that stuff really was blown out of proportion, but we had to make sure it didn’t affect the team. We didn’t have what I’d call a team meeting, we just talked about some things.”
KU coach Roy Williams passed John Kresse for second best winning percentage of all active coaches. Williams’ win percentage is .8009; Kresse’s .8008. Jerry Tarkanian of Fresno State leads at .803. Williams’ percentage is fifth best all-time.
Former Kansas assistant coach Jerry Green’s Tennessee team fell to UNC Charlotte, 70-67. The Vols finished 22-11 after opening 16-1.
“This is as unusual a season I’ve spent in 37 odd years of coaching,” Green said. “People playing well early almost everybody was playing well. Then several did not play as well. There have been some inconsistencies.”
Green didn’t jump on highly touted senior point guard Tony Harris who scored four points with no assists in 20 minutes.
“He always gave us good defense, a lot of scrap. He was a pleasure to coach,” Green said.
KU will play Syracuse at 11:10 a.m. Sunday.
“I’ll say a lot about Kansas tomorrow,” Orangemen coach Jim Boeheim said after a 79-69 win Friday over Hawaii. “They look good to me.”
Three-point goals: 13-30 (Burrell 4-7, Holmes 4-8, Heinle 3-8, Carr 1-2, McCain 1-5). Assists: 17 (Carr 10, Parris 3, Burrell 2, Heinle, McCain). Turnovers: 9 (Carr 3, Heinle 2, Holmes, McCain, Busch, Parris). Blocked shots: 2 (Heinle, Parris). Steals: 6 (Carr 4, Holmes, Burrell). |
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Three-point goals: 9-18 (Boschee 4-8, Ballard 2-4, Gregory 1-1, Gooden 1-1, Hinrich 1-4). Assists: 26 (Hinrich 9, Ballard 5, Gregory 4, Boschee 3, Collison 2, Gooden 2, Carey). Turnovers: 15 (Hinrich 6, Collison 2, Boschee 2, Chenowith 2, Gregory, Gooden, Ballard). Blocked shots: 4 (Collison 2, Gooden, Carey). Steals: 5 (Hinrich 3, Gregory, Gooden). |
| Cal State Northridge | 37 | 38 | 75 |
| Kansas | 52 | 47 | 99 |
Technical foul: Hinrich
Earl Richardson/Journal-World PhotoIf Jeff Boschee keeps this up, he’ll soon be known as Kansas University’s defensive stopper.
“I do want to take pride in my defense,” said the 6-foot-1 Boschee, who held 6-foot-4 Bernard King to dismal 5-of-18 shooting in Kansas’ 100-70 victory over Texas A&M on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.
“I knew it’d be difficult to play against King because of his height. Coach told me before the game he’d try to take it at me because of his height. Coach said, ‘Make him put it on the floor.’
“I think I was able to frustrate him a little bit because I made him put the ball on the floor more than what he is used to doing.”
King last year’s Big 12 freshman of the year did score 18 points thanks to 6-of-8 free throw shooting. He missed seven of nine three-point tries and basically was not a factor.
Earl Richardson/Journal-World Photo“We knew Bernard would get points because he’s a scorer. We wanted to make sure we could hold his percentage down,” KU coach Roy Williams said. “Jeff is smaller but able to get right up on him. I think he bothered him. When Bernard was able to get past him, some other guys were there.”
Offensively, Boschee sizzled, hitting four of six threes, good for 14 points. Boschee now has made 10 of his last 18 threes after a streak in which he made just eight of 43 threes.
“I think the shots are just going in,” Williams said. “I know it sounds simple. When his shots were not going in, he was shooting it fantastic at practice. In shooting drills over Christmas, two straight days he shot 101 shots and made 85 the first day and 86 the next. None were layups either right in front of or right behind the three-point line.
“In that stretch, he was not making them in the games. He was rushing himself a bit.”
“The big thing is getting my feet set,” noted Boschee.
Earl Richardson/Journal-World PhotoMeanwhile, senior Luke Axtell is now misfiring. He went 0-for-3 from three-point land Saturday and is 0-for-7 over three games.
“I’ve just got to keep shooting them in practice and working on it. Some were in and out,” Axtell noted. “It’s been a slump when you look at my percentage.”
He did score 10 points with five boards and two assists in 19 minutes.
“That’d be my evaluation,” Williams said, asked if Axtell’s misses are just one of those things that happen to shooters. “If they ever make all their shots, I’ll be the best coach there is.”
Eric Chenowith blocked a shot late, then had the ball stripped as he dribbled downcourt like a point guard.
“Eric has a fantastic block, everybody says, ‘Wow,”’ Williams said. “then two seconds later he’s a big you fill in the blank. You’ve got to be smarter than that.”
Drew Gooden fed Collison with a lob pass for a vicious slam in the second half.
“I told Nick I was going to throw it at the rim and he should go get it,” Gooden said after his own 19-point effort. “Nick made a good play on it.”
“Drew really has good ability to pass the ball. The only problem is his sight. Sometimes he doesn’t see there’s a defensive player,” Williams said. “He always sees our guy and always thinks he’s wide open. That time it was a heck of a pass to Nick.”
Hinrich, who had 10 assists, hit Kenny Gregory with a lob for a vicious slam dunk.
“Kenny got behind the defense that time,” Williams said. “We’ve probably thrown away more lobs than any team I’ve coached. When it was successful we coaches thought it was the first successful lob we’ve thrown in the year 2001.”
Junior guard Brett Ballard’s family wasn’t affected by last week’s gas explosions and gas geysers in Hutchinson. “I worked behind that store that blew up,” Ballard said. “It was kind of weird to see that on TV.” Ballard’s father teaches at Hutchinson High.
KU visits Colorado on Monday night for an 8:05 p.m. tipoff.
The Buffs had some controversy on a recent road trip to Ames, Iowa, when coach Ricardo Patton reportedly told three players they could not board the team bus for an Ames hotel after a morning shootaround.
The players punished for being late for the bus to the shootaround reportedly walked to the hotel in 20-degree temperatures.
Patton reportedly told a CU staffer to tell the media the incident never happened, however several players told the Boulder Daily Camera it did happen.
The paper reported that all the players decided to walk back in a show of solidarity. So far Patton hasn’t addressed the situation or been reprimanded by CU officials.
Three-point goals: 5-20 (Scott 2-3, B. King 2-9, Leal 1-3, Anderson 0-1, Leatherman 0-2, Gilchrist 0-2). Assists: 15 (B. King 6, Leatherman 3, King 2, Gilchrist 2, Bean, Leal). Turnovers: 19 (B. King 5, Gilchrist 4, Anderson 4, Bean 3, Brown, Leatherman, J. King). Blocked shots: 2 (Bean, B. King). Steals: 9 (B. King 3, Gilchrist 3, Bean, Anderson, Butterfras). |
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Three-point goals: 6-16 (Boschee 4-6, Kinsey 1-1, Hinrich 1-4, Gregory 0-1, Kappelmann 0-1, Axtell 0-3). Assists: 24 (Hinrich 10, Boschee 3, Collison 3, Gregory 2, Axtell 2, Gooden, Chenowith, Ballard, Harrison). Turnovers: 16 (Gregory 4, Hinrich 3, Chenowith 2, Collison 2, Axtell 2, Boschee, Gooden, Ballard). Blocked shots: 3 (Chenowith 2, Collison). Steals: 7 (Boschee 2, Axtell 2, Collison, Gooden, Carey). |
