Portland, Ore. ? Not thrilled about playing Oregon in the Ducks’ claustrophobic den of din known as MacArthur Court, Kansas University basketball coach Roy Williams asked for an alternative.
So they promised Williams the Rose Garden. I beg your pardon, Roy, but the home of the Portland TrailBlazers was no rose garden – not with more than 20,000 fans making it a very thorny atmosphere for Kansas.
Sure enough, the Jayhawks played like a team intimidated, shooting a miserable 39.7 percent, committing 22 turnovers and turning the Ducks’ Cool Hand Lukes – Jackson and Ridnour – into Paul Newmans. Jackson had 26 points and nine rebounds; Ridnour 25 points and nine assists.
Speaking of those nine assists, that’s as many as the Jayhawks had for the entire game. Look at the box score. Kansas counted 27 field goals and only a third of them were off feeds.
What does that tell you? It tells me the Jayhawks are playing too much one-on-one.
Keith Langford logged 37 minutes and had one assist. When the ball goes in Langford’s hands, it’s like throwing it into a black hole. He isn’t giving it up. Even Kirk Hinrich was afflicted with it’s-my-ball disease. Hinrich played 39 gutsy minutes and was credited with only two assists.
Heck, Michael Lee – yes, the Michael Lee who has spent most of the early season on the bench – had two assists, not to mention 11 points and eight rebounds. Boy, what a great homecoming for the former Portland Jefferson High guard who spent his prep career playing in the shadow of Aaron Miles and rode his coattails to Kansas.
Miles did lead the Jayhawks with four assists, but his homecoming was a nightmare. In fact, it may have been the worst return since Willy Loman came in off the road in “Death of a Salesman.”
Miles, a 6-foot-1 guard who set a school freshman assists record last season, is the morning-line favorite to become the college basketball poster boy for the sophomore jinx. In Saturday’s 84-78 loss to the Ducks, Miles missed 10 of 11 shots – many point-blank layups – and was guilty of seven turnovers.
After six games, Miles has 35 assists, 25 turnovers and is shooting 26.5 percent. Those numbers aren’t going to cut it. Under normal circumstances, any player slumping that badly would be replaced.
Unfortunately, Williams has no one to replace Miles. Sure, the KU coach could move Hinrich back to point guard, but who would replace Hinrich at shooting guard? Lee perhaps.
Well, why not? When your team’s record is 3-3, you are no longer operating under great expectations. You’re looking for the players who’ll give you the best opportunity to win, and right now Miles isn’t one of them.
Still, with a punchless bench – except for Lee, who has earned more playing time – every move Williams makes would be a classic case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
All in all, though, the biggest disappointment Saturday may have been the Jayhawks’ swoon down the stretch. With 3:41 remaining, the score was knotted at 74 and the Jayhawks had momentum.
Now it was time for the kill. Now was the time to show Oregon what traditional basketball powers do to wannabes down the stretch. Now was the time to kick some butt, run off the floor smiling, grinning and high-fiving while the crowd sits on its hands, stunned.
Instead, the Jayhawks wilted like a rose in winter, then cracked like petals dipped in liquid hydrogen.
In the past, Williams has been accused of having his teams peak too soon. Not this season. The only peak around here Saturday was Mount Hood.
This is a team playing as poorly in the early going as Williams ever has had. Granted, he may not have as many quality parts as he has had in the part, but he has enough. For some reason, though, those parts aren’t coming down the same assembly line.
