Woodling: KU win typically defensive

By Chuck Woodling     Dec 29, 2006

Those who came to see Kansas University show Detroit Mercy no mercy were doomed to shake their heads and wonder if the Jayhawks actually were playing the Detroit Pistons.

But this really was college men’s basketball, not the pro variety, although not really until the second half when Kansas pulled a Rip Van Winkle and awoke after 30 minutes of snoozing under its own basket.

Try to imagine people around the country tuning into one of the myriad ESPN networks or score-posting Web sites and seeing that the halftime score was Kansas 26, Detroit 16.

What do you suppose they thought?

That the Jayhawks and Titans were playing an experimental game without a shot clock, and Detroit coach Perry Watson had ordered a four-corner delay game to prevent his 3-8 team from being blown out by the nation’s No. 9-ranked club?

That the 26-16 score had been posted in error, that halftime was still minutes away?

That the game was being contested in a parallel universe in which three-point field goals counted for just 11â2 points, regulation field goals one point and a free throw half a point?

Whatever the college basketball masses thought, you know they were surprised by the meager point production.

Meanwhile, those of you watching on live television must have been baffled by the Jayhawks’ ineptitude on offense. I wonder how many viewers switched to the Kansas State-Rutgers in hopes of seeing more scoring than they were seeing from KU and Detroit.

As it was, the Wildcats and Scarlet Knights couldn’t beat the KU-Detroit score. Rutgers led, 17-10, at halftime of the Houston Bowl. Nevertheless, Rutgers did outscore Detroit, 17-16.

How bad is Detroit? The Titans essentially have two major-college players – 6-foot-9 Ryvon Covile, who can rebound, and 6-foot guard Brandon Cotton, who can score. The rest of the Titans were just a bunch of bodies in uniform.

I really liked Cotton, whose quickness and offensive moves around the basket had me trying to visualize how good the Jayhawks would be if they had a player who could penetrate with as much skill as the Titans’ nifty junior.

KU’s Mario Chalmers, Russell Robinson and Sherron Collins can drive the lane, but often they seem reluctant to take the ball to the hole. For the most part Thursday night, the Jayhawks’ three best backcourt performers were more prone to pull up and shoot than to attack the basket.

Afterward, KU coach Bill Self talked about how the Jayhawks as a whole needed to become more aggressive, that they seemed more content to play catch on the perimeter than to force the Titans to guard them one-on-one.

You’ve heard that old saw about offense selling tickets and defense winning games. In the case of the Jayhawks, their defense wins games AND sells tickets.

There have been times when KU has played bad teams during the semester break and the students have stayed away in droves. Not this time. Allen Fieldhouse appeared to be as packed as it would have been if Missouri or Kansas State had been the foe.

Sure, the crowd would have loved to see the Jayhawks pile points in bushels, but that’s not the mantra of Self-coached teams. Defense comes first and offense second, and Thursday night was just another piece of evidence.

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