Related pages Box score Season summary

"Temple is an outstanding basketball team. I think we're closer to them than we showed tonight, but at the same time I've been trying to get everybody to be realistic about our own team. "I felt like we had a chance to win the game. I even felt like we had a chance to win the game when were were down 14 or whateever it was with eight minutes to play. But it seemed at that point, every loose ball they (Temple) got. We made them take some three-point shots in the second half that we wanted, and they made them. They were 4-7 from the three-point line in the second half. "They're a team that shot 43.6% last year, and they come in tonight and shoot 58% against us in the second half, made some tough shots. "Give credit where creidit is due, and that's John Chaney and his club. "Steve Woodberry did some nice things for us, but we didn't get him much help. We didn't move very effectively inside against the zone, even though that is an excellent zone and the way they play it is something really good. "The best team won tonight, and the best coach won tonight too. I didn't do a very good job with getting this team prepared to play. I told the kids the worst coach was sitting on their bench tonight, and I believe that. "Our lack of practice time affects the way we play, but that's using that as an excuse, and I don't ever want to do that. But I wish we did have more practice time. If we go through the Preseason NIT 4-0, you have to feel good about it But at the same time we went through the whole week last week with three hours of practice in an eight-day period, and that's not what we'd like. "We've been fortunate when we've played them in the past. Two years ago (97-73 KU win) they were sophomores, and they remembered that. And tonight they were seniors, and they played like it. "I hope we grew up some tonight. I hope they learned some things. It's uncanny: we talk about being strong with the basketball and faking our passes and penetrating and getting inside, but we did more talking about it than we did doing. I'm a little disappointed right now, to say the least. We basically had some pretty good play through most of every game, but Monday night (82-93 double-overtime loss to Australia) I was not pleased at all, and tonight I'd say the same thing. "Regardless of what the Kansas Jayhawk people want to think, we're not the only team that plays college basketball. We lost four starters. The kids are trying hard. By God, right now we're not very good. The only thing we did is we screwed up. We won the Preseason NIT. People had unrealistic expectations to begin with, and we just fueled it more. "We may have invented the game or had the guy who invented the game, but a few other people know how to bounce it and know it's round besides us. "I hate to get on the rules people, but I think we saw the effect of the five-second dribbling rule tonight. I don't think it makes for an exciting game when one guy can dribble it all day. We saw that a heck of a lot more tonight than we've seen. I don't want to do the job of those 11 guys (rules committee), but they won't be on my Christmas card list, either."

Email Jack