Vancouver, British Columbia ? About 300 Kansas University basketball fans are expected to attend today’s KU-University of British Columbia game at UBC’s War Memorial Gym.
Thousands more figure to be there in spirit, checking out the video feed from Memorial Stadium.
Anybody with a ticket to today’s 6 p.m. KU-Tulsa football game will be allowed into the football stadium to watch the 2 p.m. basketball game on the big screen.
“I’m excited about it. It gives our fans a chance to see us,” KU senior point guard Aaron Miles said. “Without it, they wouldn’t have a chance to see how special this team is.”
Today’s game is the only one of the four exhibitions that will be televised. The games against Langara (1 p.m. Sunday) and University College of Fraser Valley (9 p.m. Sunday) and Simon Fraser (12:30 p.m. Monday) will be broadcast on the Jayhawk Radio Network.
“I think it’s great it’s on in the stadium,” Wayne Simien said. “Hopefully, we’ll pack the stadium for the football game and the guys will get a big win.”
The football game counts in the standings, not the basketball game. That fact won’t affect the motivation of KU’s players, senior Keith Langford said.
“I’m sure they watched the Olympics. They saw the USA lose,” Langford said. “I’m sure they figure Kansas is USA and we’ll be beatable. It gives us some ammunition with the USA losing.”
The U.S. Olympic team indeed was far from invincible at the Athens Games, settling for a bronze medal.
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“We don’t want to go up there and end up like the Dream Team and snuff the first game, so we are going to take the teams seriously,” Simien said.
Langford says every time he takes the court he wants to win.
“I don’t care about anything but winning. We’re going there to win. That’s the object,” he said.
Four Jayhawks won’t play this weekend — freshman Matt Kleinmann, who will be red-shirted; sophomores Jeremy Case and Nick Bahe, who are possible red-shirts; and junior Jeff Hawkins, who is on indefinite suspension and didn’t make the trip.
“Safety, health, win four games, that’s the biggest thing,” KU coach Bill Self said of his goals for the trip.
