Thirty-one percent of the schools remaining in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament were on Kansas University’s schedule.
Of those five KU foes still dreaming of winding up in St. Louis two weeks hence, the most surprising is, without question, Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
You remember the Jayhawks’ game with the Panthers, don’t you?
You don’t? Well, I can’t say I blame you, because I didn’t remember much about it, either, other than it was played at Kemper Arena, and UWM’s Ed McCants was so good I wondered if North Carolina whiz Rashad McCants had changed schools and first names.
That was also the first game the Jayhawks played without first-team All-American Wayne Simien, who would take a four-game hiatus to recover from a thumb injury.
Now, in retrospect after reviewing the nuts and bolts of the KU-UMW contest, if I had to stick a label on the Jayhawks’ 73-62 triumph over the Panthers, it would read “The Iron Pyrite Game.”
Three freshmen looked like gold that night, and they fooled us into assuming the yearlings in coach Bill Self’s touted five-man recruiting class had arrived to the point where they would be solid contributors.
Alex Galindo scored 14 points — 10 in the second half — and grabbed seven rebounds in 17 minutes off the bench. Those would be his season highs.
Russell Robinson scored 12 points, one point shy of his output nearly a month earlier against Nevada. The 13 points were his season high.
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And C.J. Giles had six points and three boards in 13 minutes.
“The three freshmen bailed us out,” Self said after that game. “If not for Russell, C.J. the first half and Alex the second half, who knows how the game would have turned out? Those three bailed us out.”
The Panthers’ McCants, asked afterward if he was surprised the Jayhawks were able to win without Simien, said: “We knew they’d have some guys come out of nowhere.”
And nowhere is, more or less, where they returned.
Self never would have occasion during the remainder of the season to talk about a freshman bailing them out — in large part because he rarely gave them an opportunity.
In Friday night’s stunning loss to Bucknell in Oklahoma City, when a few of the veteran players were tiptoeing through the tulips and the Jayhawks clearly needed someone to man the bilge pumps, the three freshmen who had rescued the Jayhawks against UW-Milwaukee were scraping barnacles.
Giles played just seven minutes against the Bison, Galindo only one minute and Robinson logged as much time on the floor as Jackie Robinson.
Surely the fatigue factor had something to do with those three freshmen performing with such vigor against UW-Milwaukee. That game was played three days before Christmas, and Self conceded the Jayhawks had played tired that night — except for the three freshman and senior Keith Langford, who was splendid with 21 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
Then again, the Panthers were weary, too. That was their fifth straight road game. Their record was 6-3 when they left Kansas City. It’s 26-5 now, meaning UMW has won 20 of 22 games since bowing to the Jayhawks.
Kansas, meanwhile, boosted its record to 8-0. The Jayhawks would climb to 14-0 before being thumped at Villanova, then lose six of their last nine and conclude their season in utter disbelief.
UW-Milwaukee is still in a disbelief mode. Nobody dreamed the Panthers would reach the Sweet 16, and nobody gives them a wisp of a chance to reach the Elite Eight because they must play Illinois, this year’s destiny darlings, Thursday night in the Chicago Regional.
Way back on Dec. 22, it appeared Kansas, blessed with a solid corps of veterans, also had a quality group of understudies capable of stepping in and performing with such skill that the audience wouldn’t notice any dropoff.
But it’s a long, long way from Christmas to St. Patrick’s Day.
