Still, its a bit like dating a gal with a split personality to be a Jayhawk fan right now. You don't not know whether it will be Katie Couric or Rosanne Arnold who answers the door. Five days after the Jayhawks hit rock bottom in the Roy Williams era with a 33-point loss at Oklahoma St., the third worst loss in Jayhawk history and the worst under Roy Williams, the Jayhawks came back today to post one of the biggest wins in the long KU-KSU series. The Jayhawks' 94 points were the most scored by the Jayhawks in the series and the Jayhawks' 27-point half-time margin was the biggest half-time margin in a road game in Williams' stint as the KU coach.

But it wasn't just the margin of victory that separated this road win from the loss last Monday. The Jayhawks played like an entirely different team. If you looked closely you saw Jayhawk players who didn't have the ball running hard at the guys defending their teammates and then stopping right next to the defender and getting in his way so that the teammate could move somewhere else on the court without the defender following him. This is called a screen. It is a very useful thing in a basketball game. The Jayhawks haven't used this nifty trick much recently. Today they did and got lots of open shots as a result.

The Jayhawk players also discovered that if they didn't shoot when they a) were closely guarded, b) were off-balance or c) had an open teammate closer to the basket, the team scored a lot more points. Coupled with the discoveries that passing the ball around quickly makes it harder on the other team's defense and that moving your feet on defense and challenging the shooter makes it harder for the other team to score, the Jayhawks looked quite a bit like the Jayhawk teams that dominated the conference in the 1990's.

Today at least. The fear still lurks that it could be Roseanne answering the door next time.

Further good news from this game is that this win came on the road, snapping the Jayhawks' four-game road losing streak, the longest in Williams tenure. Of course, a road win in Manhattan has to carry an asterix since the Jayhawks have had more success there in recent years than in Allen Fieldhouse, and, once again, the Jayhawks beat the Wildcats by more in Bramledge than they did in the Fieldhouse.

The renewed dedication to team play and fundamentals paid dividends for several individual players. Boschee scored a career-high 24 points on 6-of-11 three-point shooting. It wasn't simply that he was hitting his shots. He was taking much better, much more open three-point shots. KU's slide in the last three weeks has coincided with Boschee's shooting slump, and it is no accident that KU looked worlds better on a day when he was shooting effectively. He is really KU's only consistent outside threat. When he isn't hitting his shots, KU simply isn't as good. The renewed efforts to set screens and to make the open pass give him a lot more open looks, and that played a big part in his increased scoring. Boschee is a pure shooter, but he's not a shooter who can shoot over defenders or consistently shake his defender on his own. He needs help from screens and from zippy ball movement to give him an open look.

Another reason Boschee was so effective was that he was playing with Hinrich so much today. Kirk started the game at the point, and Boschee started at off-guard in place of Nick Bradford who was nursing a gimpy ankle. Bradford played, but only 20 minutes to Hinrich's 28 and Boschee's 32. Hinrich does a great job of setting up Boschee both by relieving him of the need to bring the ball up and by penetrating and dishing back to Jeff on the wing.

Many fans have been hoping to see Jeff and Kirk play together more or even start together. In his post-game comments Williams hinted that we will be seeing more of this. One could imagine Jeff and Kirk as the staring guards with Gregory moving to the small forward, where he is perhaps more effective, even if Bradford were completely healthy.

Unfortunately, an injury today to the index finger on Hinrich's shooting hand may prevent us from seeing what could be a very effective starting lineup. It is unclear this evening whether Kirk's finger is broken or merely jammed, but Williams said in his post-game that it didn't look good.

Losing Hinrich for any significant period of time would be a big loss. He has been one of the most effective Jayhawks recently and brings more movement and pace to the offense than does Boschee as the point guard.

The other Jayhawk player who bounced back strongly today was Kenny Gregory. Gregory scored 17 points on eight-of-nine shooting. He avoided forcing shots by driving through defenders to the basket and about floored me when he drove the lane, stopped when he ran into traffic and dished back out to Boschee on the perimeter, who canned an open jumper. If Gregory can do that more often, the offense will start producing lots of open shots.

Kenny quietly seems to be fixing his free throw problems. He has hit 8 of his last 12 free throw attempts and has greatly simplified his shooting motion. Not only does that make it less of a disaster when he's fouled, but it has to increase his confidence overall.

Gooden and Collison both played very solid games today, as well. Each logged a double-double. Both scored 13 points. Collison grabbed 13 rebounds and Gooden 11. There numbers made it all the more obvious that taking Chenowith out of the starting lineup was the right move but hasn't inspired him to better play. Chenowith was scoreless in 15 minutes, missing all six of his shots, most from within five feet. He had four rebounds. Absent an injury, Gooden is likely to be the starter from here on out. Chenowith was relatively effective on defense, and his role is likely to be as a defensive stopper against certain opposing centers.

It was far from a perfect game for the Jayhawks. They merely played KSU even in the second half and got sloppy with the ball after the break. For the game the Jayhawks had 23 turnovers. Boschee and Hinrich each had four to go with four assists each. Johnson had four turnovers in only 10 minutes, detracting from his 5 points in the same stretch.

So What Gives?: A lot of people have been asking what's wrong with the Jayhawks. KU teams don't loose by 20 and 30 points on the road to other conference teams. They don't fold at the first sign of adversity. How has this team, which had so much promise and looked so good early in the year, turned into a team that gets blown out twice in 15 days?

Of all the answers I've heard to that question the simplest and the one that rings the most true is the one offered by the coach. The Jayhawks haven't been executing the fundamentals very well and they haven't been playing with much poise. Teams without pure one-on-one players, which is what KU really is, can still win lots of games if they play hard as a team. That means being very disciplined in setting screens, playing team defense, moving without the ball and all the other little things that make coaches giddy but never make Sports Center highlights. The Jayhawks for much of the year simply haven't done those things on a regular basis.

Beyond that, individual players haven't performed as expected. Chenowith against all expectations has become a non-factor, leaving the Jayhawks with two freshman manning the low post. As talented as they are, they get out-muscled and out-savvied by less talented but more mature opposing big men.

At the same time, Luke hasn't turned into a consistent scorer. Bradford and Gregory were never pure shooters. It was anticipated that Luke and Jeff would take care of the outside shooting chores and allow Bradford and Gregory to slash. But with Luke first hurt, then out of shape and now not playing, that leaves only Jeff as a pure shooter. When he went into a slump that left KU offensively challenged. London hasn't been much of a factor, and Johnson hasn't been able or allowed to contribute more than spot minutes.

All this together means that the Jayhawks have a small margin for error IF they don't execute the fundamentals well. Against MU and OSU they faced teams playing as well as they could in front of very loud and partisan crowds. The Jayhawks got down early, started forcing things and, as a result, tried to win by playing one-on-one, which is not their strength. The result was blow-outs and some huge hits to the collective confidence of the team and the fans.

The return we saw today to an emphasis on fundamentals is the key to turning things around. The question is whether the players have the discipline to stay with that strategy when they are backed into a corner. This is a young team. The players that are really producing for the Jayhawks right now are mostly freshmen and sophomores. Its hard to develop maturity on the fly. What this team needs more than anything else right now is a win against a tough opponent on the road. The team, though, is running out of chances to get one of those.

Today was a step in the right direction.