March 19 - Over and Out!

There are two things that aren't tolerated in Kansas -falling wheat prices and early NCAA tournament exits. I am not sure where spot wheat prices are right now, but I do know that the Kansas Jayhawks were ousted from the tourney last night and that means blood is boiling all over the "Sunflower State." I am not ready to characterize last night's 64-63 loss to the Bucknell Bison as the worst in Kansas history, but it is probably in the top-3. After all, this senior-dominated team was ranked number one in the country during the pre-season and many pundits around the country thought this just might be the year that Kansas gets the job done. The had the unstoppable big man inside and they had to two mature guards who had been through many wars before. According to conventional wisdom, this is supposed to be the recipe for NCAA success. Unfortunately for legions of Jayhawk fans, the recipe didn't call for the Hawks to run up against the most athletic team the lowly Patriot league has produced since the days of Paul Revere and John Adams.

Bucknell is not your typical Patriot League team. They are neither stodgy, slow or white for that matter. They have some decent athletes and it showed last night. The didn't really have an answer for Kansas bigman Wayne Simien, but they sure did a number of the rest of the Jayhawks. And they won because they protected the ball, held their own on the glass and made a couple shots when they really needed scores. As mentioned above, Simien was terrific in his final college game, even though he missed a fairly makeable shot at the buzzer that would won the game. Bucknell had no shot stopping him and I am surprised that coach Bill Self didn't feed him on every offensive possession. It was particularly gauling since the other big guns on Kansas were misfiring all night. The big triumverate of Arron Miles, Keith Langford and J.R. Giddens collectively finished 2 of 19. Langford was playing on a gimp ankle so he gets a little slack, but I am not going to be so generous with Miles. As I wrote a few days back, I have never been a fan of Miles and I thought he was going to be the weak link that would eventually sink this team. I thought it was going to happen next weekend, but I was at least directionally correct.

So where does this loss rank in the all-time annals of tough Jayhawk losses. Well, I must start by saying it doesn't come close to triple-overtime defeat Kansas suffered in the 1957 NCAA finals against North Carolina. When you have Wilt and are playing against an all-white team whose tallest player is 6'6, you gotta like your chances. Well, Wilt didn't get it done that evening and I put that loss at the top of the list. In second place comes the loss in the 1997 Regional Semi-Finals to Arizona. That 1997 team, with Paul Pierce, Raef Lafrentz and Jacque Vaughan, was probably the best team I have ever seen Kansas put on the court. They came into that game with almost a perfect record, but they exited with the second worst loss in school history. It is close, but I think last night's loss probably scoots into the three hole. Expectations for this team were super high in Lawrence and this one has got to hurt bigtime and probably just a bit worse than two heartbreakers to Syracuse - the first in the 1996 Regional Finals and the second coming two years ago in the NCAA finals.

As for Bucknell, its safe to say this was the greatest victory in school history. In fact, its the only victory the school has ever scored in the NCAA tourney. Is it any coincidence that the victory came in the Bisons first tourney since alum Les Moonves took over the reigns of CBS? I guess if Moonves is going to fork over all those millions for the tourney's broadcast rights, he gets to pick some of the winners. Kansas learned that the hard way. I would be remiss if I didn't send out my congratulations to Latham and Watkins partner Paul Hunt who is the only guy I know who can say he called Bucknell home for four years. Paul's two schools are Bucknell and Virginia and who would have thought we'd see a day where Bucknell has more tourney wins over the past decade than the Wahoos.

The other big shocker of the first round happened up there in Worcester where the Catamounts from Vermont drove into town and took out Jim Boeheim and his Syracuse Orangemen. This one gave me great pleasure since I am no fan of the Orange and I always enjoy a nice cold Orange crush. In this game, the star was not Vermont center Taylor Coopenrath, but Germain Mop Njila who went 9/10 against Syracuse's vaunted zone. Coppenrath played alright, but it was Njila who supplied the necessary firepower for the Cats. I thought Vermont came into this game very well prepared although they did have trouble executing early against that aforementioned zone. They seemed as if they knew what they had to do but were tentative nonetheless. That tentativeness seemed to fade as the team got more confidence and it didn't hurt that they got a few key threes when they really needed them. Meanwhile, Syracuse was all over the place last night. Star forward Hakim Warrick was nearly unstoppable inside, but he did turn the ball over ten times. Because of those turnovers, I give Warrick a B for last night's performance. I cannot be as kind to Gerry MacNamara who gets a D minus. The guy was 4 of 18 last night and his poor shot selection finally came back to haunt the Orange. MacNamara is a all or nothing kind of player. At times he can be lethal as he was in the NCAA final two years ago, but at other times, he can be a cancer for his team. Boeheim at one point last night should have shut Mac down, but it didn't happen. The kid kept bombing away, and unfortunately for Syracuse, little of his ordinance hit its intended target.