A year ago tonight, not even Pollyanna would have believed Kansas University would reach the NCAA men’s basketball championship game five months hence.
The Jayhawks looked like turkeys in the Big Apple.
During Thanksgiving week of 2002, Kansas was left for dead after being yammed and cranberried in the Preseason NIT in New York.
First, Kansas was stunned, 67-56, by a freshman-laden North Carolina team coached by former KU aide Matt Doherty. Then, in the third-place game, the Jayhawks were buried under a barrage of Florida three-point goals and fell, 83-73.
For Kansas, Madison Square Garden held no roses, only thorns. At the time, the Jayhawks’ prospects of making back-to-back appearances in the NCAA Final Four were lower than the Wall Street subway station.
Immediately, the pundits began proclaiming what was wrong with the Jayhawks. Without the graduated Jeff Boschee, the school’s all-time leading three-point scorer, and with Kirk Hinrich struggling shooting threes in New York because of a bad back — he was 2-for-11 in the two games — the Jayhawks had no outside firepower to take the pressure off their 1-2 inside punch of Nick Collison and Wayne Simien.
All you had to do was look at the numbers. In the Preseason NIT, the Jayhawks made only 5 of 25 three-point shots, a dismal 20 percent. KU’s long-range shooting was as suspect as a $20 Rolex watch sold by a street vendor in Times Square.
However, as we know now, while the Jayhawks were not a deadly three-point shooting team in 2002-2003, they mustered enough firepower to advance to the NCAA title game against Syracuse at the Louisiana Superdome, where they were done in not by three-point woes but by dismal free-throw shooting.
If you’re wondering why I’m bringing up the Jayhawks’ goring in Gotham a year ago it’s because I’m certain history would have repeated if Kansas had fallen to Michigan State Tuesday night in Allen Fieldhouse.
Just about everybody would have blamed a loss on the Jayhawks’ errant three-point shooting. And with good reason.
In its victories over Tennessee Chattanooga and Michigan State, Kansas has made just nine of 39 three-point shots (5 of 20 against the Mocs, 4 of 19 against the Spartans) for a shaky 23.1 percent. Moreover, the three-point accuracy wasn’t any better in the two exhibition games. KU made 2 of 10 threes against EA Sports and only 3 of 14 against Pittsburg State. That’s a combined 20.8 percent.
Of the trio of players who loom as the Jayhawks’ primary three-point shooters, point guard Aaron Miles has been OK with 3-of-9 accuracy, but Michael Lee has made only 3 of 11 from beyond the arc and freshman J.R. Giddens just 1 of 7.
Still, I don’t think making three-point goals is as much a necessity for the Jayhawks as it is for their opponents. If a coach comes into Allen Fieldhouse thinking he will win without a preponderance of three-point goals, he has counted more chickens than he has in his coop.
While Kansas managed only four treys Tuesday night, Michigan State had just five. That’s not enough.
Perhaps the best example is last season’s lone loss in Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas blew a 13-point halftime lead to Arizona mainly because Salim Stoudamire drilled 6 of 9 three-point attempts and scored 32 points to lead the Wildcats to a stunning 91-74 triumph.
Basically, though, if history is any indicator, three-point shooting will not make or break the Jayhawks.
Kansas went to the Final Four two years ago shooting .418 from beyond the arc — the second-highest percentage in school history — and Kansas went to the Final Four last year by shooting .335 from three-point range — the second lowest in school history.
All in all, that’s additional proof the only number that really counts is the one on the scoreboard.
