Lahaina, Hawaii ? Today, ESPN will televise three of four first-round Maui Invitational basketball games.
Left out to drift in the nearby waters of the Pacific Ocean are players from perennial powerhouse Kansas and Mid-American Conference member Ball State, a school that will try to make the cable network’s SportsCenter highlights with a shocking victory over the No. 7-ranked Jayhawks.
Tipoff is 3:30 p.m., Central time, at 2,500-seat Lahaina Civic Center, with a live telecast on KU’s own Jayhawk network (Channels 13 and 38).
“The opportunity is there for us to make some noise in college basketball,” Ball State coach Tim Buckley said matter-of-factly.
He welcomes back four starters from last year’s 18-12 team, including junior power forward Theron Smith, who plays much taller than his 6-foot-8, 225-pound frame.
“The approach we’ve taken,” said Buckley, “is we can be Kansas’ first-round opponent or we can be Ball State. We’ll be Ball State if we come home with a victory and if not, we’ll just be another team Kansas played.”
Buckley has been preparing for this day since early June when it was rumored KU would be playing the Cardinals.
“If the Kansas administration called (BSU assistant) Tracy Webster and told him he had to coach their team right now, he’d do a great job of that,” Buckley said, quipping that Webster knows the Jayhawks as well as any KU fan.
“We’ve watched a lot of film on them from last year and we exchanged tapes of exhibition games. We feel like we know what they’re going to do and it’s a matter of whether we can stop them from doing what they want to do. That’s the challenge you face. They have all those McDonald’s All-Americans and we have guys who eat at McDonald’s.”
Buckley, who’s starting his second season at Ball State, does have one of the finest players in the Mid-American Conference in Smith, who averaged 16.3 points and 8.1 rebounds a game last year.
Guard Patrick (better known at Petie) Jackson averaged 13.9 points and 4.1 assists a year ago, while 7-foot senior Lonnie Jones contributed 2.5 blocks per contest.
In all, eight letterwinners return for a team picked by many to win the MAC.
“We talk about that every day,” Jackson said of a possible victory over KU. “We know we have the talent and we have to go out there and play like we know we can play. I think going against Kansas will be something that makes us step up our intensity and our game.”
Win or lose and Ball State definitely is out to win and advance to Tuesday’s 8:30 p.m. battle against the UCLA-Houston winner the Cardinals figure to learn a lot today.
“The experience we’re going to have is something not a lot of people get to do,” backup guard Rob Robbins said. “We’re going to learn some things and if all goes well, we can play well in the games and learn some things from teams that have been there before. Any time you play better competition, it forces you to play at a higher level.”
Ball State beat Texas Tech by 20 points last year and stopped Purdue by 20 two seasons ago. The Cardinals led UCLA at halftime of a first-round NCAA Tournament game during the 1999-2000 season, eventually falling, 65-57.
“We’ve studied Ball State. We feel they have an outstanding club,” KU coach Roy Williams said. “With the Smith youngster and some of the guards they have, we expect it’ll be a quick game, up and down the court. We both want to play that way, but we’ve got to make sure we have enough gas left at the end.”
Ball State returned the compliment to KU.
“Kansas has an outstanding basketball program, not just a team but a program. They’ve stood the test of time,” Buckley said. “The players have come and gone but the success has remained. Playing them and preparing for them is going to make us a better team down the road.”
Yes, Buckley is enthused about today’s opener, even if ESPN deemed the game the only one of the four not worthy of national TV.
“It’s a game we’ve been looking forward to a long time,” Smith said. “Kansas has a great team but we feel we have some guys who know how to play, too.”
