OKLAHOMA CITY ? Anaheim, Calif., is home of the World Series-champion Angels.
Anaheim in the home of world-famous Disneyland.
And now Anaheim will be the site of a battle between two of college basketball’s titans.
The folks at the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce must be wondering when their good luck will end, with Duke and Kansas scheduled to collide in the Pond — so-called because the arena is the home of the NHL’s Anaheim Mighty Ducks — Thursday night in an NCAA West Regional semifinal.
Speaking of good luck, you gotta have it in the NCAA Tournament — no ifs, ands or buts. Nobody goes through the grueling 65-team crapshoot without, as Kansas senior Nick Collison said after Saturday night’s unexpectedly easy 108-76 annihilation of Arizona State, “staring down the barrel, or however you want to say it.”
Utah State was holding the howitzer on Thursday night, but the Aggies’ round missed, and KU escaped with a 64-61 victory.
You need not be long in the tooth to have been, in the wake of Saturday night’s frolic in the Ford Center, struck by the mysterious sensation of dejvu.
Isn’t this the same script we witnessed last season?
Indeed, it was just a dozen months ago the Jayhawks were sent to St. Louis and struggled to dispose of No. 16 seed Holy Cross in the first round. Worse, junior guard Kirk Hinrich suffered a sprained ankle and almost all the pre-second-round media reports revolved around Hinrich’s status for the next game against Stanford.
This year, the Jayhawks struggled to dispose of Utah State, a No. 15 seed, and most of the pre-second-round media reports centered around what was wrong with Hinrich, because he had attempted only two shots in the second half and had finished with just eight points.
As it turned out a year ago, Hinrich was OK. He scored 15 points as the Jayhawks smashed Stanford, 86-63. Same thing this year. Hinrich rebounded to score 24 points against ASU.
All in all, both seasons have had the same scenario. In each case, supposedly in grave danger of a second-round dismissal from the tournament, the Jayhawks found their panacea in a Pac-10 team.
This is more than dejvu. This is dejvu all over again.
In essence, the spirit of St. Louis was rekindled in Oklahoma City, which must have looked mighty pretty to the Jayhawks even in the dark as their motor coach pulled away from the Ford Center for the 5-hour drive back to Lawrence.
Those of you who may have worried that the massive throng of Oklahoma boosters who had turned the Ford Center into a den of din in Thursday night’s OU-California opener would jump on the Arizona State bandwagon needn’t have been concerned.
As the Jayhawks turned the Sun Devils into Dust Devils in the first half, the OU faithful were exiting the arena like the Sooner Schooner on steroids. The predominantly pro-OU crowd was mostly bored. With 10 minutes remaining, Arizona State’s mum fans, virtually alone in the 18,400-seat arena with KU boosters, must have wished the NCAA had a euthanasia rule.
And so as it was a year ago, Kansas went to a first- and second-round NCAA Tournament site as a high seed and showed everyone in the barn and watching at home on television how they could be dreadful on one night and dynamite a mere 48 hours later.
Last year, the Jayhawks used the win over Stanford as momentum for victories over Illinois and Oregon in Madison, Wis., in order to reach the Final Four. If KU follows the same script, it will have to scuttle Duke, then face the winner of the Arizona-Notre Dame game for the right to go to New Orleans.
That’s all. Just beat Duke and probably Arizona. Tough regional? No doubt about it.
If the Jayhawks win two games in Anaheim, they certainly won’t make the folks in Orange County forget the Angels, and they won’t re-name an area of the Magic Kingdom “Jayhawkland”, but they won’t miss the boat to The Big Easy.
WIBW video: Jayhawks moving on
Box score: get the stats
Photos: Arizona State game pix
Hear Roy: Arizona State postgame comments