Schedule breaks often don’t occur in college basketball during January and February, so you have to savor them when you can.
You don’t have to ask first-year Kansas University women’s coach Bonnie Henrickson if she’s glad the Jayhawks don’t have a midweek game scheduled.
It’s the same reply you’d hear if you asked if a bear lives in the woods, if a fish head is water-tight or if Brad and Jennifer are pfffft.
You’re darned right Henrickson didn’t call the Big 12 Conference office and beg to differ about the schedule gap.
“With our numbers, it’s hard to complain,” Henrickson answered good-naturedly. “In fact, we might need another one.”
With only nine scholarship players, Henrickson undoubtedly will wish for another midweek schedule break in February but, alas, there are no more.
If you’ve seen Henrickson’s team perform — the Jayhawks are on live TV more than ever this season — you haven’t had much difficulty learning the starters’ names, because they’re on the floor more than The Gargantuan Jayhawk of Allen Fieldhouse.
You’ve heard of the Ironman Triathlon. Well, KU’s women’s basketball team is the Ironwoman Marathon. Henrickson goes to her bench about as often as Lawrence is swamped by a tsunami.
In the Jayhawks’ four Big 12 Conference games, all losses, each of the five starters has averaged 31 or more minutes per game. Point guard Erica Hallman is the leader at 38 minutes. When Hallman goes to the bench, reporters open their cell phones and call CNN.
Hallman, a 5-foot-8 junior from Covington, Ky., probably would be averaging 39-plus minutes if she hadn’t sprained an ankle in Saturday’s Texas A&M game and been forced to sit for five whole minutes.
Clearly, no KU basketball player has been more blessed by this scheduling anomaly than Hallman.
“Erica’s ankle is getting better,” Henrickson said. “It will be good to get her healthy for the Missouri game.”
KU’s next outing is against the Tigers at 7 p.m. Saturday in Allen Fieldhouse. A healed Hallman is a lock for 30-plus minutes of duty that night, as are the other four indestructibles — forwards Crystal Kemp and Taylor McIntosh and wings Aquanita Burras and Kaylee Brown.
With so few players eating so many minutes, Henrickson must continually motivate her four reserves who, coincidentally, all average about 13 minutes a game.
“I was just talking to that group about not getting big minutes,” Henrickson said, “and I told them they’re all an ankle sprain away from getting minutes.”
Or serious foul trouble away. McIntosh, in particular, has had difficulty avoiding fouls, but that’s not uncommon for a freshman. McIntosh is a rebounding machine but she isn’t much of a threat to score, and scoring is what Henrickson needs most. Kansas ranks last in the Big 12 by producing only 58.3 points a game.
Still, Henrickson is squeezing the most she can out of what she has. The Jayhawks, thanks mainly to Hallman, execute a patient offense and they play hard on defense, notably Burras.
Sometimes Henrickson’s players will break down, like in last week’s 70-37 home loss to Iowa State. But sometimes they’ll scare you, too, like Saturday at A&M, where they staged a stirring late rally to wipe out an 18-point deficit before falling, 62-60.
All the while, Henrickson keeps her fingers crossed about injuries. And she’s not embarrassed to admit she does some knocking on wood, too.
“We all do,” she said.
