Nick KrugKansas University’s basketball coaches tried to phone Christian Moody on Tuesday morning, hours after the Jayhawk senior missed a pair of possible game-winning free throws against rival Missouri.
“His phone message box was full,” KU assistant coach Kurtis Townsend said.
Not to worry. Moody, on the Jayhawks’ day off, walked into the basketball offices at Parrott Athletic Center at 11 a.m., with KU’s 89-86 overtime loss to Mizzou still on his mind.
“He didn’t care anything about himself. He wanted to make sure the coaches were OK. That’s the kind of kid he is,” Townsend said, subbing for Bill Self on the KU head coach’s weekly Hawk Talk radio show.
“He felt like he let a lot of people down,” Townsend added of Moody, who was long on two free-throw tries with 0.4 seconds left in regulation, the game deadlocked at 77 at loud Mizzou Arena.
“You just feel really bad. You could say, ‘Hey Christian, it’s not your fault,’ but he’s such a competitor he took it to heart and felt he could have won the game by himself, which isn’t the case. Coach Self did a great job explaining, ‘Hey, it’s not your fault.’ A lot of stuff happened before that.”
Self said after the game he’d lost no confidence in Moody, indicating the senior forward would win the game in a similar situation next time.
“He is one of the most special kids I’ve been around in 15 years of coaching college,” Townsend said. “I don’t know if I’d want anybody else up there. He’ll knock it down.”
Self hit the road recruiting Tuesday, phoning his talk show for a 15-minute segment from Oregon, where he attended a prep game of Kyle Singler, a 6-foot-8 junior guard/forward from South Medford High. Singler, the No. 4-rated player in the Class of 2007, is considering KU, Duke, Arizona, North Carolina, UCLA and Washington.
“The thing I was pleased with, other than the outcome, was how our guys handled a tough situation,” Self said of the loud crowd at MU. “I felt we pretty much controlled the game, even though it was back and forth, as far as keeping Missouri from pressuring us out of what we wanted to do.
“The (19-4) run we put on them from the nine-minute mark to two-minute mark was probably the best stretch we’ve played with the exception of maybe a short stretch against Kentucky. We didn’t finish the game right. Missouri made some unbelievable plays and of course we didn’t convert at the free-throw line (hitting five of 10 the final minute).”
Of the Jayhawks’ last three games, Self said: “It’s been an interesting week. We obviously played very well at Boulder (in a 75-63 win against Colorado). We played well in spurts, miserable the last 12 minutes against K-State (in a 59-55 home loss). We played great yesterday. We couldn’t ask for the guys to play any better, then we didn’t finish the game. Those last two games are about as tough a way as possible to lose basketball games.”
Thomas Gardner was the main culprit Monday, scoring a career high 40 points off 7-of-14 three-point shooting.
“I thought we did a poor job on 10 of his 20 points the first half. He was on fire the other 10 points,” Self said. “The second half we did a great job on him with Russell (Robinson) and Hawk (Jeff Hawkins) taking turns. He certainly deserves to be given a lot of credit because he was exceptional last night.”
¢ KU’s new Booth Family Hall of Athletics will open for the first time this weekend, only to those who have tickets for Saturday’s men’s game against Nebraska (3 p.m.) and Sunday’s women’s game versus Oklahoma State (1 p.m.) The Hall will open at 12:30 p.m. Saturday and 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
The Hall will open to the public Monday. The hours are 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.
The 26,000-square foot hall honors KU’s historic athletics programs, its coaches and athletes past and present.
¢ Aldrich honored: Cole Aldrich, a 6-11, 257-pound junior center from Bloomington, Minn., who has committed to KU, has been invited to play in the Reebok Roundball High School All-America tournament April 9 in Chicago.
Aldrich has a 7-5 wingspan.
