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The Kansas Jayhawks put together one of their best halves of basketball in the first half against Tulsa and I, and many others, missed it. Why? A big, and totally insincere, "Thank you" goes out to The University of Misery and ESPN. You see, the Misery Tiggers were scheduled for the 6pm (central time) game against the Iowa Hawkeyes, and neither the Tiggers nor the Hawkeyes wanted to get the game over in a hurry. So they proceeded to play not one, but TWO, grueling overtimes that cut into nearly the entire first half of the Kansas-Tulsa game. I found myself angrily yelling at the television, wondering if I had died and this was my punishment for the sins I committed during my lifetime. Even when the Misery-Iowa game ended, the blundering fools at ESPN showed us a few more disgusting seconds of players and coaches shaking hands. And then finally it happened. Oh wait, no it didn’t. ESPN then took us to a bunch of friggin commercials. By the time it was all said and done, the viewing audience got to the game with a whopping 1:35 left in the first half. ESPN blundered all over the place tonight. After that thrilling 1:35 ended, ESPN took us to their "SportsCenter In-Game" show. Finally, I thought to myself, I would get to see the many highlights and some commentary of the first half I had just missed. WRONG! Instead, we got to listen to the announcers, Mike Tirico and former Misery Tiger Jon Sundvold (conspiracy?), laugh and frolic about what a "quick" first half it was. The studio guy joined in on the fun and then proceeded to show us highlights of every other game that was played on Saturday. Even through the second half, the normally enjoyable commentary from Tirico and Sundvold was nothing more than way too many stories about how Coach Williams and Tulsa Coach Buzz Peterson have been friends forever, are part of the North Carolina lineage of coaches, how Buzz was roommates with Michael Jordan, etc, etc. I soooooo wanted to reach through my television set and grab them both by their ties and say, "Hey, I hate to interrupt your little nostalgia-fest here, but how ‘bout you FILL US IN ON THE FIRST HALF a little bit"? I also waited to see what the "numbers" were for the first half. ESPN put those up on the screen for about 3 seconds. Hey ESPN, here’s the ball………oops, you dropped it. I apologize for putting you all through that, but I just had to get it off my chest. Now on to the game……….. Thank the Almighty for Bob Davis and Max Falkenstein, because if it weren’t for them, myself and many other KU fans across the country would have been completely in the cold (come to think of it, I was pretty much in the cold in KC, with windchills of 40 below zero) on what went on in the first half. That being said, it almost made it worse for me to hear Bob’s excited yelling as I stared disgustingly at the Misery-Iowa game. The half-time score was 49-35. Here’s what I was able to gather from the radio broadcast: Early on the score was tied at 13. The Jayhawks then went on a 17-2 run to blow the game open. Nick Collison scored 5 early points, had another 2 off of a bank shot off the glass, drew a charge, and had a nice "putback" two that ended the first half. Eric Chenowith (16 pts in first half) was playing like a man possessed. Just my (and Eric’s) bad luck……Eric puts together one of the best first halves of his career, and all of the fans, including myself, that have been critical of Eric over the years……..missed it. From what I heard, Eric had a couple of 3-pt plays, a couple of monster dunks, took it to the basket strong, had a block or two, and basically totally dominated in the paint. NICE JOB, ERIC! WE KNEW YOU HAD IT IN YOU! KEEP IT UP BECAUSE YOU CAN BE A DOMINANT FORCE NIGHT IN AND NIGHT OUT! (Eric, if you are reading this, please go back and read that again.) Kirk Hinrich was looking for his shot in the first half. (Can someone please tell me why Kirk isn’t always looking for his shot? It seems that he comes out in some games ready to stroke it and in other games he virtually avoids shooting the ball.) Kirk nailed his first three 3-pointers in the first half and missed one other. (Ok, 3 for 4 from 3-pt range in the first half for Kirk alone. Why, in the DePaul game, did we attempt only four 3-pointers for the ENTIRE GAME?) Kirk is clearly our best perimeter shooter and I was very glad to see (I mean, "HEAR", thanks to ESPN) him hit those 3’s. Jeff Boschee got two fouls early, missed a couple of 3-pointers, missed a layup, and hit an 8 foot jumper. (Is anyone else getting concerned about Jeff’s apparent inability to hit the 3-pointer? At this point, it doesn’t appear that the Jayhawks can count on Jeff for perimeter scoring. His inconsistency is extremely unsettling.) Because of the early foul trouble, Boschee was replaced by Brett Ballard (13 minutes tonight), who filled in nicely. Of Ballard, Coach Williams said, ""Everybody's mad at (Brett Ballard) in that locker room right now because every day in practice he makes every shot he takes. Against the blue team, he just drills them every single day, and he didn't make any tonight. But he really did a good job defensively for us." Maybe Ballard should give Boschee some shooting lessons? Drew Gooden had 6 points in the first half. It didn’t sound like Drew was in the thick of things as he usually is, but I could be completely off since I was only listening to the game on the radio. The defensive intensity was good in the first half, as the Jayhawks continued to use man-to-man defense and the point zone. The only reason that Tulsa was even remotely in this game at the end of the half is because they shot 8 of 14 from 3-point range. Why is it that teams seem to consistently get "on fire" from 3-pt range against the Jayhawks? This is becoming an annoying trend. The good news is that Tulsa was forced to resort to shooting from the outside because our big men were completely dominating in the paint, outscoring Tulsa 24-8 in the first half. Even better news is that the Jayhawks fought off the 3-pt barrage, stuck with the game plan, and continued to dominate as they took a 14 point lead into half-time.

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