Kansas Jayhawks News
Joshua Schulman at SI looks ahead to tonight’s matchup against Oklahoma State in Stillwater.
The Jayhawks had previously won eight straight but fell to the Cyclones in a rematch of last month’s showdown. KU is attempting to bounce back against a less formidable opponent in the Pokes, though it’s still a tough environment away from home.
As we all know, Bill Self going into Stillwater can give Jayhawks fans an uneasy feeling. The Pistols Firing blog looks back at the last 5 times Okie State has pulled out a win against Kansas.
This KU team has a little work to do to win the regular season title, but that doesn’t mean the Jayhawks aren’t good like they normally are. KU enters Wednesday at 19-6 on the year and 9-3 in league play. They sit at No. 8 in the AP Poll and 14th in the NET.
The KC Star asks whether tonight is the night that Darryn Peterson pulls out of his mini-slump.
Freshman guard Darryn Peterson is on a bit of a cold streak. The star guard scored a KU-career low 10 points vs. Iowa State. He’s in a bit of a shooting slump. Over his last three games, Peterson is shooting just 36% from the field. It’s by far the worst three-game stretch of his freshman season.
HCBS takes the high road when discussing the firing of Jerome Tang.
“I like Jerome & I hate to see when any coaches get let go. But I also know it’s big money and it’s big business,” Self said.
Through the Phog believes that Kansas must avoid any let downs over the next couple of games if they want to keep their conference championship hopes alive.
The Jayhawks have games against two of those teams left on the schedule. They still have to play Houston and Arizona, but before those games next week, KU has to get by Oklahoma State and Cincinnati first.
Jay Bilas puts the Jayhawks at #9 in his Bilas Index, with some nice words about the Phog. While I get annoyed by the guy’s commentary sometimes, I’m still a fan of Bilas.
Let’s get this out of the way early: If the NCAA tournament were to be played in Allen Fieldhouse, Kansas would win the national championship. If you have been there, you know. If you simply watched the Jayhawks play Iowa State, BYU or Arizona in Lawrence, you know. Allen Fieldhouse is the best venue and home court in the game, period.
Other News
Heartland Sports looks at 8 potential candidates to replace Jerome Tang in Manhattan. (Editor’s note: If subordination is what K-State is going with on their “for cause” case, well good luck making the next hire.)
As mentioned in the comments yesterday, MLBPA head Tony Clark resigns abruptly following some interesting findings. I’ll let David deal with that one tomorrow if he wants.
We’ll wrap up with a couple pieces from Defector, first up is discussing Team Canada women’s hockey team as they are set to take on the MIGHTY AMERICANS!
Two conflicting thoughts from Canada’s Olympic semifinal win over Switzerland on Monday: There is no shame in Marie-Philip Poulin being the best player on your team; there is some shame in needing a one-legged 34-year-old in order to score a single goal.
Lauren Thiesen looks at the hottest chant in professional wrestling. Hint, it rhymes with duck lice.
QOTD: If you’ve been around here for any amount of time, you are probably aware that I have spent a lot of time officiating basketball and football over the years. I’ve worked it all from little kids rec (will not touch that these days) to some small college stuff but with job changes I have cut way back on doing it and have been mostly stuck doing random JV or middle school stuff. Well, this year I found a way to work in some varsity basketball games and it has been an absolute blast even though the games haven’t been great. I don’t know what it is but it’s the type of joy that you feel when you wake up the next day and think “man, that was fun and I want to do that again”. Leading to the question of what activity have you done in the last few months or so that brings you that kind of joy and happiness?