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Television commentator and former Jayhawk Chris Piper said it best: "They (KU) were not ready to play this game when they stepped on the court tonight." That pretty much sums up how ugly the first half was. The half-time score was KU 33, Illinois State 25 and is my leading vote getter for the worst half of basketball this team has played all season. Were they not motivated for another game against a "middle of the pack" opponent? Were they looking ahead to their game at Wake Forest? Did they not sleep well last night? Is there a flu bug working it’s way around the team? Whatever the case, it was an ugly, ugly, ugly first half. What were some of the "lowlights," you ask? The Jayhawks were outrebounded 26-21 in the half. A simply embarrassing statistic for which there is no excuse. Coach Williams said: "But I think you'd have to say that Illinois State outhustled us and played a lot better than we did in the first half. That's the first time we've even been close to being outrebounded, and they outrebounded us 26-21 in the first half." The five starters were pulled by Coach Williams about 5 minutes into the game because they played with virtually no enthusiasm (my dog gets more excited when I throw her a treat) and played very poor defensively. (Keep in mind: DEFENSE will be one of the major issues to make or break the Jayhawks this year. The kind of defense this team plays will determine if they will go down as a GOOD KU team or a GREAT KU team.) Numerous lazy passes that were picked off by Illinois State players. Illinois State was beating the ball to the passing lane. KU ended up with 14 turnovers, but it felt like it was much worse than that. Poor shooting. For the half, KU ended up at 40% from the field on 12 of 30 shooting. Fortunately, Illinois State was at 26% and shot only 8 of 31 from the field. Additionally, KU was only 2 for 8 from 3-point range. The second half was much better, presumably because Coach Williams lit into the youngsters during half-time. Drew Gooden said: "We came out sluggish in the first half, and Illinois State just outplayed us. I think that we took them for granted. We were not playing KU basketball to the best of our ability. Coach got on us at half-time and we deserved it." The Jayhawks regained their focus and came out hitting 7 of their first 8 field goals in the half. They did a much better job of scoring down low and the defensive effort was much better. In short, they came out in the second half realizing that they have to do more than walk on the court to win a game over a quality opponent who is ready to play. Drew Gooden gets the "STUD" stamp of approval tonight. (17pts, 7 rbs, in 26 minutes). Drew was extremely active in the second half and it seemed like he was getting an easy bucket down low every other time down the court. He had one sweet spin move on the block and slammed it home for two that got the AFH faithful on their feet. Drew came up big and gave the team a spark when they needed it………which got me thinking: Should Drew be coming off the bench instead of starting? He is clearly one of the best five players on the team and deserves to start, but I am starting to think more and more that the team may benefit more by the instant offensive and defensive intensity he brings as a sixth man. Nick Collison is a great player and plays a consistent game that does not include much outward emotion, which in my opinion is an important characteristic to the sixth man. Who knows what the right answer is? It’s just something to think about. Solid numbers by several other players tonight: Kenny Gregory had 11 points, but only 1 rebound (Coach Williams did mention that KG had a problem with his foot tonight. This undoubtedly had an effect on his rebounding.); Chenowith had 11 points and 6 rebounds; Collison had 9 points and 9 rebounds; Kirk Hinrich dished out 8 assists and, for some reason, took only one shot, a 3-pointer, which (surprise) went in; and Luke Axtell recorded 11 points and a career-high 8 rebounds in 20 minutes of play. Another important statistic is that no player had over 3 fouls. Coach Williams said this past week that if there was any player that should be upset about his playing time at this point in the season, it should be Jeff Carey. I have mentioned this point over and over again... that Jeff Carey needed more minutes in the last five games. Coach Williams had hinted that Jeff would get more minutes tonight, but when it came down to it, Jeff got a whopping 8 minutes, scoring 4 points and grabbing 3 rebounds. He has got to be averaging somewhere between 6-8 minutes a game. Is this a crucial mistake on Coach Williams’ part? No. And who am I to tell Coach Williams what to do? My main point is that Jeff, and the team, could have benefited from the additional playing time during these five blowout games. It would have made him that much more prepared when that point comes in the season where our other big men are in foul trouble and Jeff needs to step it up. He’s a solid player and I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, but it’s difficult to replace real game experience. You’ve got to give credit to Illinois State. They played hard-nosed, pressure defense and were ready to play tonight, particularly in the first half, when they dictated the pace of the game and were not intimidated by Allen Fieldhouse or the Jayhawks. This game would have been a lot closer if they had maintained their rebounding intensity and shot better than 3 of 18 from 3-point land. The Jayhawks shot under 50% from the field for the first time this season, ending the game at 49.2%. However, they did improve on their 40% first half (12 of 30) by shooting 58.6% in the second half (17 of 29). Free throw shooting woes: 18 of 31, for 57.9%. Yuck. This must improve or this team will lose a couple of games it shouldn’t have because of it. Overall, this team is in good shape going into the game against Wake Forest. They have a few injuries that need some healing, but should be ready to go. At this point in the season, I see four areas that this team needs to focus on: (1) Being focused and ready to play night in and night out; (2)Not turning the ball over; (3) Hitting their free throws; (4) Playing better defense. They keys to the season lie in how much improvement we see in these four areas over the next several weeks.

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Keep Rockin’ and Chalkin’... MJ