Athletes love to indulge themselves with alleged victimhood. After they win a game of consequence they’ll travel that old phony cliche route with something like, “Nobody else thought we were any good or that we could do it, but we had faith in ourselves and we knew we could.” Makes them look more heroic at least in their own eyes, I guess.
That’s the way the onrushing Missouri basketball crew has been bleating after its upset of Oklahoma State. And that’s how some of the Kansas University players will be talking after they win another big one, if they do.
(With Nebraska and Oklahoma here and Mizzou at Columbia, the Jayhawks have no more gimmes. They can blow all three.)
But watch. They win and right away it’ll be the worn-out “they didn’t think we could but we did it just the same.” Rudderless KU better be wary or it will end the season with a version of the old Casey Stengel baseball quip: “We didn’t think it could be done, but it couldn’t.”
Both the Jayhawks and Tigers have to accept that victories for them should not be surprises. They’ve been supposed to win all year. Yet they’ve lost so often that any victory has become special.
Both clubs were rated big-time winners before the season and both have been disappointments, whatever the reasons. They better not moan about the respect they think they don’t get and start earning such with better play. Guys, you’re supposed to win. You shouldn’t be underdogs. You’re better than that.
Couple times of late, observers have speculated that Wayne Simien and J.R. Giddens might leave for the pros after this year. Simien is not close to being ready and neither is Giddens. Despite his periodic three-point splurges. J.R. can’t shoot mid-range, doesn’t handle the ball well and can be a disaster on defense. He needs a lot more work.
Aaron Miles for all his assists dribbles too much and continues to show bad judgment on when to go to the hole. Keith Langford is a weak ball-handler, gets tied up by quicker defenders, is a marginal shooter and has not fit into the Bill Self offense nearly as well as expected.
Quirky Jeff Graves had a great chance to carve a niche for a high NBA draft but is so erratic in so many ways that he may have frittered away a great opportunity. So sad.
Simien, bless him, plays his buns off but can’t do it alone. Green but eager David Padgett also exerts outstanding effort and has the skills that will make him an all-leaguer, at least. If everyone else was giving the effort these two do, Richmond, Iowa State, Nebraska and Nevada would not have prevailed.
The KU bench that once looked so promising so far is more overrated than Sarah Jessica Parker (who’s always on the tube hyping herself, trying to do so much with so little).
There’s much to be done and little time if KU is to have a prayer of winning more than two NCAA Tournament games. These Jayhawks need to approach the rest of the season with ferocity, without self-pity and accept that if they should finally do well they were expected to. Maybe they got too much respect too soon and began to think they were that good. Look how Michigan State has learned and advanced. KU has deteriorated.
Missouri has been similarly auto-victimized but may have found itself. Pardon the uneasiness about KU’s closing the regular season on March 7 at MU.
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There’s great news about Bernie Morgan’s Fabulous Forgotten Five of KU basketball and Charlie Black II, the four-time Jayhawk All-American whose jersey already is displayed in Allen Fieldhouse.
First off, the Kansas All-Sports Hall of Fame finally has come around to including Charlie and word is induction will come sometime this year. It’s an oversight that long has needed rectifying. Sad thing is, KU immortal Paul Endacott of the 1920s and Phillips Petroleum fame still is not in the hall, though he’s in the national hall of fame.
Last week I wrote about Morgan’s efforts to hang the jerseys of Jayhawks Bill Bridges, Walt Wesley, Dave Robisch, Bud Stallworth and Darnell Valentine in the AFH rafters. Athletic director Lew Perkins has written Morgan that “We will do this next year, properly, with dignity and class.”
Massive plaudits to Perkins and Co.
Meanwhile, I’ve heard from superfan Ken Johnson, KU ’70, who cites other “forgotten” jersey-worthies with great credentials:
William “Skinny” Johnson, 1931-33, All-American, basketball hall of famer; Ralph “Lefty” Sproull, 1913-15, All-American, three-time league scoring champ; Ray Ebling, 1934-36, All-American, three-time league scoring king; Arthur “Dutch” Lonborg, 1918-20 four-sport letterman, ex-Northwestern basketball coach and KU athletic director, 1960 Olympic team manager and a close partner of Phog Allen in getting the NCAA Tournament going; Tommy Johnson, 1909-11, KU’s first bona fide All-American; Ted O’Leary, 1930-32, All-American, conference scoring champ and outstanding writer; Forrest “Frosty” Cox, 1929-31, All-American and former Colorado coach; Ralph “Cappy” Miller, 1939-42, in hall of fame, also a football star, retired as sixth winningest college coach of all-time.
No argument on any of those.
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Orchids to the selectors for the new Kansas Relays Hall of Fame, who came up with an outstanding initial list. Jim Sallee and I, however, wish they’d included Lawrence’s Bill Nieder in the first group. The guy had a leg ripped apart in his sophomore football debut here in 1953, almost had it amputated, then fought back to win silver and gold Olympic shot put medals (1956 and 196). With two good legs, what a center-linebacker he would have been!
But there’ll be other inductions and oversights can be corrected. The important thing is that the KU guys are busily working at trading on our fabulous history and tradition. The Jayhawk Nation richly deserves such.
