Best Case, worst Case

By Tom Keegan     Jan 19, 2006

Nick Krug
Kansas guard Jeremy Case defends against New Orleans guard Dusty Driggs in the second half.

Jeremy Case has the easiest job on the Kansas University basketball team.

And the toughest.

When the Jayhawks go through one of those scoring droughts and Bill Self looks up and down the bench and settles on Case, it’s not as if the slender shooter from Oklahoma has to wonder what he’s supposed to do once he gets in the game. His job is take every open shot he gets. Who doesn’t like to shoot? No indecision has to creep into his game. That’s what makes it the easiest job on the team.

Unlike a relief pitcher, Case doesn’t get to warm up before he enters. He can’t miss his target on a few pitches before finding the strike zone. There is no 10-foot hoop set up outside the tunnel that Case can go shoot on during timeouts to stay sharp.

He comes into a game cold and either hits a shot quickly or goes back to his seat to watch the rest of the game. In his role, there is no shooting his way to a hot hand. That’s why he has the toughest job on the team.

Nick Krug
Kansas' Jeremy Case looks to pass in the second half. Case hit four of five shots and scored 11 points in 11 minutes against UNC.

He’s the team’s three-point sniper. That’s why he’s on the roster, and that’s why he sometimes gets into close games, even though he’s not in the primary rotation.

“I would like my role to be more, but as of right now that’s what we need,” said Case, generously listed as 6-foot-1. “People in my position want to help the team whatever way they can, and I’m happy with that. The nice thing is he’s totally given me the green light, and that absolutely helps.”

That ‘magic level’

In a three-game stretch against Northern Colorado, New Orleans and Yale, Case scored 29 points in 33 minutes and made nine of 12 three-pointers. In the four games since, against Kentucky, Colorado and Kansas State and Missouri, Case has gone scoreless in 13 minutes.

“I still think he’s going to go in one game and just go crazy,” KU coach Bill Self said. “I still think that’s going to happen.”

If and when that day comes, Case knows exactly how he will feel. He’ll be in the midst of that surreal adrenaline rush shooters experience when they’re on fire.

“Sometimes, the basket feels as big as the ocean,” Case said. “I remember back in high school I’d be in a zone, and I felt like I could throw up any kind of shot, shoot with my eyes closed, and it’s going in. That magic level you can get to sometimes. It’s a magic level. That’s the only way to describe it. I wish I could be like that all the time.”

And on other nights, such as was the case against Missouri, he won’t get into the game. Sparse playing time won’t alter Case’s routine.

The night before a game, a full practice already behind him, Case finds a manager to rebound and puts up “300 or 400 shots,” which he said takes about an hour. More than half of those are three-point shots.

On game day, the shoot-around for a 7 p.m. tipoff is usually around 1 p.m. After participating in that, Case will return to James Naismith Court about 3 p.m. to shoot for another 40 minutes. Then he said he showers and relaxes in the locker room and doesn’t shoot again until joining the rest of the guards at 6:05 p.m.

“It’s not that much, really,” Case said.

Not for the son of a coach who had access to a gym and challenged his young son to work so hard he turned his weakness into his strength.

‘The ballhandler’

“My daughter was the natural-born shooter, and Jeremy was the ballhandler,” said Win Case, who coached Oklahoma City University to two NAIA national titles and is now coach and athletics director at Eastern Oklahoma State College in Wilburton, Okla.

Win gave Jeremy a goal. The father would point to a spot, feed the son the ball at that spot, point to another spot, feed him on the run again and keep feeding him until he had taken 50 shots. The goal was to make 45.

“We would do it every day in the summer, and he’d never get there,” Win said. “He’d make 30 or 35, and he’d want to keep doing it until he conquered it. I’d have to tell him it was time to go home and eat dinner. He finally did it two summers ago when he made 47.”

In high school, the younger Case wouldn’t the leave the gym after practice until he had made 100 three-pointers.

Who’s a better shooter, the father or the son?

“We kid around a lot about that,” Win said. “I would say I was a better shooter, but Jeremy is a better pressurized shooter. In high school, with the game on the line, Jeremy always wanted the ball in his hands to take the shot. We’d play a game where the clock was running down, and the state championship was on the line, and he’d take 15 last-second shots and see how many he made. He got to where he’d make 13 or 14 every single time.”

The best shooter in the family, according to Win, is Jeremy’s mom, Rita Kemp, who starred at Seminole junior College in Oklahoma.

Footwork from Self

Throughout his playing and coaching career, Win said he stole something from every good shooter he was around and passed along the knowledge to his son.

One of those shooters was his backcourt-mate at Oklahoma State, a former high school player of the year in the state of Oklahoma, Bill Self.

“One thing I learned from Bill was footwork,” Win said. “He had the best footwork of any shooter I’ve ever seen. Bill taught me how to balance myself and get the right footwork shooting.”

Case, a third-year sophomore, was recruited to Kansas by Roy Williams. Self and Win discussed Jeremy when Self was at Illinois, but Case didn’t fit Self’s recruiting needs that year.

The last thing Self needs now, as the Jayhawks are 0-5 in games decided in the final minute and in the midst of a two-game losing streak to rivals Kansas State and Missouri, is a parent whining about his son’s playing time. And in Win Case, that’s the last thing Self needs to worry about.

“It’s always difficult when you’re not playing,” Win Case said. “But the one thing I’ve always preached is that regardless of whether you’re the No. 1 man on the team or the 12th man, do whatever you can to help the team. And it’s a privilege to be at KU. I tell him, ‘You’re special. Not too many players in America get a chance to play in front of some of the greatest fans in the world, and you need to be thankful. Some day you’ll look back on all this and say, “I was part of something that was very, very special.'” Jeremy knows that.”

Case sold on Self

The elder Case predicts greatness for Self’s Kansas teams.

“Bill knows what he’s doing,” Win said. “He’s a great coach, and Kansas is very fortunate to have him. If I was a betting man, I can tell you eventually Kansas is going to reach the promised land, and by that, I mean a national championship. I’ve been around this a long time, and I can tell Bill is building something special. The key is people just need to be patient as they go through the growing pains.”

Win said he watched on television and winced as KU lost in improbable fashion to Missouri. He felt for his son and for his son’s coach. But it’s not as if he and Self hadn’t been through it before.

“We were playing OU in Stillwater, and we were down three points when they didn’t have the three-point line, with about six seconds to go, during the Wayman Tisdale era,” Win Case said. “Bill was the point guard, and I was the off guard. Billy Tubbs had gotten a technical, and Bill talked our coach, Paul Hansen, into letting me shoot the technicals. I hit the two technicals to bring us within one. Bill said, ‘Win, get open, I’m finding you.’ He dribbles down, hits me in stride, and I make the shot. We’re going crazy, thinking we won the game. They threw it all the way to the other side, and Wayman Tisdale dunks over three of our players to win the game.”

Self never beat Oklahoma as a player. He will beat this slump, Win insists.

“I’m not just saying it because Jeremy plays for him or because I played with him, I’m telling you, Bill Self will take Kansas to the promised land,” Win Case said.

And on occasion, when Jeremy Case reaches that “magic level,” he’ll help his coach’s team soothe its growing pains along the way.

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