Tuesday Tidbits: KU's Bill Self Channels His Inner Vanilla Ice

Love me some Self.

(clip courtesy of Deadspin)
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Sunday Sermon: That Loser Mentality

How many times have we read, said, or heard a great saying that accurately summarizes the massive effect that the wide world of sports has on many people’s lives? Today I write with a heavy heart, still reeling from the pain of K.U.’s loss to the University of Northern Iowa, a game that was in fact, nothing less than a stunner. It is not a matter of opinion: Kansas Men’s Basketball is a great program. You may choose not to root for them. You may choose to select a different adjective in describing the team. You may even hate them, but it is literally impossible, barring your ability to largely disillusion yourself, to say with an honest tongue that the achievements of Kansas basketball have been anything shy of tremendous.

Heading into yesterday’s game was perhaps an insurmountable pressure for the nation’s number-one team. The game started off similar to the one the Jayhawks had just won, in that they trailed early to LeHigh, and again to U.N.I. Only their deficit to Northern Iowa was one in which they could not overcome. I don’t mean to chalk the loss up to pressure, and I stoutly refuse to lend an ear to any complaints regarding officiating. The simple truth is that this Jayhawks team was outplayed. Anyone who doesn’t want to give it up to that Cedar Falls club is in outright denial. It was a high-energy game, one in which the Panthers led for all but a handful of seconds. Kansas made a respectable run with less than three minutes to play, but it was, as the saying goes, too little too late. Northern Iowa was destined to advance, leaving the Jayhawks maimed and teary-eyed in their locker room.

My point in writing today, though, is not to carry us through the sufferings of Kansas players, coaches, and fans, but rather to talk about what the loss means to those who are not fans.

It is difficult, in words, to express exactly how frustrating it has been, even before the game was over, to witness the sheer joy and celebration that friends, fans of other Big XII programs shared when it became all but certain that the crimson and blue would be going home. I’ve used this term on numerous occasions in recent weeks, and I hate to overdo it, but I’ll take that risk and say that the rooting against Kansas, the admitted hatred of the school/hoops program, cannot be classified by any other words than these: loser mentality.
That’s correct and intended, and for purposes of clarity, I’ll say it again: loser mentality.

Before I elaborate, and before offense and insult sets in, there is one thing to understand, and that is this: I am an expert in loser mentality. No. I don’t have a license for it in my wallet, and there is no framed degree stating such on my office wall. My word will just have to be taken on this matter. I have been a loser, and in some regard, I still am. More on that in a minute, but first some background to illustrate that to which I refer.

Be it via conversation, text messages, Tweets, or Facebook status updates, here are a few of the gems – mostly from Missouri fans, but the K-Staters have chimed in as well -- I’ve heard in recent weeks:

“I could never, under any circumstance, bring myself to root for K.U.”

“Even if K.U. was playing the team that beat M.U. in the national championship in the previous season, I’d still pull for the team that beat M.U.”

“Learning to hate K.U. is my second sports memory ever. The first was celebrating the Royals World Series win; the second was my dad telling me, after reading the paper the day after the Jayhawks won the ’88 title game, 'No, son: It is not great that they won. We hate K.U.'”

As the final minutes ticked away in yesterday’s game, here were a few:

“Don’t blow this, Northern Iowa.”

“THIS IS EPIC!”

“Can’t wait to buy my Northern Iowa shirt; it’ll go great with my Bucknell and Bradley tees.”

And of course there are the token folks that think they’ve invented something clever when they say “Gayhawk” or “Rock Choke.”

And it’d be silly of me to leave out the shiny new Facebook group entitled “Remember KU choked in the 2010 NCAA Tournament? That was AWESOME.” For the record, we’re not 24 hours removed from yesterday’s tipoff and that group almost has 13,000 members.

Anyway, back to how I’m a loser.

I’ve been watching professional football for 30 years now, and I’ve been watching it legitimately, consistently for 24. For most of that first decade, my Kansas City Chiefs were terrible. And trust me when I say that “terrible” is an understatement. It wasn’t until the beginning of the Carl Peterson/Marty Schottenheimer regime in 1989 that the Chiefs were even worth mentioning on a national level. And as many are aware, the Chiefs had a quote/unquote deal with NFL Films to not tape/broadcast any deep passes thrown at Arrowhead, so as not to reveal the tens of thousands of empty seats. But this general manager/coach duo turned things around for the franchise, restored things to the winning ways that had long evaded Chiefs teams since the early ‘70s.

In case you don’t want to do the math, that’s a long damn time to be a horrid sports club.

Somewhere in the middle of that stretch of putridity, a couple of Kansas City’s rivals were having success. The Denver Broncos went to a Super Bowl in the late ‘70s, the Oakland/L.A. Raiders won one or two, and hell, even the Seattle Seahawks and San Diego Chargers had their moments. For a spell, the Raiders owned the Chiefs, and for most of the ‘80s, and chunks of the ‘90s, the Broncos did, too. Football fans all know that in the last 10 years, the Raiders have been a pretty terrible team. They did go to a Super Bowl in 2002, but they’ve been terrible ever since.

Denver, on the other hand has, as one of my colleagues puts it, has “sustained excellence” over time. Very seldom do they finish below .500, and they’ve been to six championships now and even won a pair.

I’ll pause for a minute to say this: There is a massive generational aspect to consider in sports fandom. That is, if your folks are fans of the Kansas State Wildcats, then you probably are, too. Unless you hate your parents, I guess. The point, though, is that people have children, and ties to teams tend to be passed on almost as if they were their own unique sector of the gene pool. I have an uncle who’s an M.U. fan. He hates K.U. None of his three kids went to M.U., and neither of them is really into sports at all, but I can guarantee you that if asked, they’d confess their hatred of the Jayhawks as well.

Where my loser status comes in is here: The Denver Broncos have been, are, and probably always will be my football nemesis. They were good in the ‘80s when my team was terrible. They were great in the ‘90s when my team was good, and they’ve always been a proverbial force to be reckoned with in the 2000s. En route to their first Super Bowl win, they came in to Kansas City as a wildcard and knocked off the Chiefs, who’d gone 13-3 with a first-round playoff bye. Since then, they are either in the playoffs almost every year or at least on the season-ending bubble of post-season contention. They’ve been to a conference championship game in the last five years, and their fan base, by way of some good San Diego teams and some awful Chiefs teams have begun to collectively overlook my Kansas City team.

Suffice it to say, I hate the Denver Broncos. While they’ve toyed with post-season hopes in each of the last three campaigns, my Chiefs have won a total of 10 games. Ten. Games. Here’s one spin on that: That’s a 21 percent winning percentage. The real spin, however, is this: That’s a 79 percent losing percentage. When your losing percentage is flirting with an 80 percent, you are nothing shy of a massive loser. I top that by tuning in to every Broncos game and rooting for whoever they’re playing. If the Chiefs lose, by sullenness is somewhat balanced by a Denver loss. If the Denver game isn’t on television, I’m pissed. And believe me when I say that there have been many Sundays where I question which team is getting more of my energy. That makes me a mega-loser.

But you know what? I’m okay with that. The National Football League is highly respected for having a balance among teams and across all 32 franchises. It’s the league in which anyone can make a quick turnaround. It has a salary cap. It offers the opportunity to be competitive, do your job well, and have success. If you don’t, you won’t.

This is not the case in Major League Baseball. The league has tried via luxury sharing, and some teams have had success even though their payrolls are remarkably small in comparison to some of the baseball giants. This is not the case in NCAA basketball, either. I’ve tried to illustrate this contrast with friends whom are fans of Kansas State and Missouri, and since I’ve been riding the cliché train this entire post, I’m sad to say that the comparison has done absolutely nothing but fall on deaf ears. In an area like Kansas City, most of us as sports fans band together in our passions for the Chiefs and the Royals. When it comes to college sports, however, we fragment faster than a firework in the July fourth sky.

In baseball, we have no allegiance to the Clevelands, the Chicagos, the Minnesotas, and the Detroits, although some of us might jump on the bandwagon come October. In football, we have no need to pull for the Denvers, the Oaklands, the San Diegos, and I doubt any of us change our tunes in January. In the college basketball regular season, we don’t like each other, and that’s how it should be. If K.U.’s playing M.U., you’d better believe I hate me some Tigers. Same goes for K-State. Do I wish global misery upon their programs? No. I want them all to be successful. I want the competition to be tight, and most of all, I want the Big XII to get its due respect.

In college football, the folks in Bristol laud the SEC, and the Big XII is an afterthought. In hoops season, the Big East gets a lot of attention, and the Big XII gets an occasional nod. But us Big XIIers need to band together once the conference tournaments are over. We need Selection Sunday to be a bridge point. If we face one another in March, it’s on like Donkey Kong. Until that moment, however, we should be pulling for one another. That doesn’t mean bellied up at the bar wearing your gold if you’re a K-Stater. It doesn’t mean actively cheering for K.U., M.U. fans. It just means not rooting against them, not erupting in glory when a foe falls and fails.

If you don’t get it now, you probably never will. I’ve been stoked for all seven of the Big XII teams since tournament play started five days ago. Some have fallen, and since I started typing this, the Tigers have been toppled by the West Virginia Mountaineers. You think I was pulling for W.V.? Absolutely not. I wanted M.U. to advance. I was stoked for them last year when they made it deeper into the tournament than they ever had. I have mad respect for Frank Martin and the Kansas State program. I was pulling for them against North Texas, and B.Y.U., and I hope they’re successful against their next foe, too.

And let’s not forget Texas A&M and Baylor, who are also still alive and very much in this thing.

In the end, the point is two-tiered: I’ve never been an M.U. fan, or a K-State fan, so I’ve not experienced the frustrations that the Kansas Jayhawks have existed as over the years, but I pull for my fellow Big XII teams when it comes to March Madness matchups that don’t pit the teams against one another. And I can say that, having experienced (and still experiencing) the loser mentality that I aim to counter. The other factor is the representation that our conference needs. I see folks posting polls and studies and stories all of the time about this region of the country. What percentage of rednecks lives here? Where do we stack up in the quote/unquote best/worst cities in which to live? Are we the fattest city? And there’s the argument on how Kansas City will always be a two-sport town, that we could never support an NBA or NHL franchise.

The take on all of those angles is negative. What we need is a positive spin and we can gain that in the tiny world of our college basketball brackets. We should stand together. Will I be genuinely happy if K-State or M.U. wins a national title? For the simple fact that that means Kansas won’t have won one, no, I won’t. But will I pull for the Tigers or the ‘Cats, or any other Big XII team when they face non-conference opponents? You won’t hear my hollers at the bar, or see my fist pumps on the couch, but I’m rooting for them. You bet I am. I’m always looking to shed a few layers of loser. So let’s go, Baylor. Let’s go, State. Get out there and win.
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Saturday Studmuffins: Kansas Jayhawk Brady Morningstar

KU's up by 16 at the start of the second half, and Morningstar has almost no stats, but you gotta love the fiery white boy.

Yeah. That's right. It's White Boy Day. Right here in the middle of Black History Month. Rock Chalk!


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Thursday ThumbTubes & YouNails: 4-9-09

Who's got time for classy intros? I dunno. The cinema? The symphony? Sitcoms? Not me. Not today. Get crack-a-lackin', y'all.

Apparently, the Masters is going on. I think this guy has the lead after day one.



How's that for some coverage?

Adrian Peterson was invited to say the traditional "Let's Play Hockey" at the Minnesota Wild game.



He real good.

(video courtesy of Deadspin)

This has something to do with basketball.



She might've been married to Jason Kidd, or something.

This should be flippin' stellar.

Might have a dash of rape, and a sprinkle of lobe-chewing, but still: awesome.

(video courtesy of The Big Lead)

I guess Tyler Hansbrough's mom is a MILF?



I don't even know what that means.

Can't get those coals goin' for the tailgate?



It's cool. Just keep a Ron Mexico jersey handy. Works every time.

(video courtesy of Tailgating Ideas)

The gals at Babes Love Baseball have a respectable story on Nick Adenhart.



which is -- how do I say this -- the total opposite of the one at With Leather.

I think Cecil took over my brain for a minute,



forcing me, literally, to post that.

(video courtesy of Today's Big Thing)

Will the next Winter Classic be at Fenway?



Who knows. Apparently it's a secret.

Know what's not, though? Watch the whole thing:



Goose bumps, yo. Goose bumps.

(courtesy of Brahsome)
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Well, That Happened

The Tarheels of North Carolina won the NCAA championship last night. The score was kind of a lot to not quite as much. A few thoughts after the jump.

5) Between this year's Final Four and last year's, KU fans should be at peace with their Roy Williams wounds. He got his championship with someone else's team a few years back, and now he gets a 100 percent legitimate one, two championships that flanked a Final Four loss to his former team that went on to win it all.

4) I know Carolina's good, but I can't figure out what happened to Tom Izzo's Spartans. They rolled all of these teams, and then just looked plain lost tonight.

3) Twenty-one turnovers. Really? Twenty-one? There must be a little too much Brett Favre green in those Michigan State uniforms.

2) Ever heard of a little thing called full-court press? Like, before under five minutes to go? You might consider that if you're down roughly 20 points for the entire game. And square up before you shoot threes from 80 yards away.

1) That had to be one of the most uninteresting basketball games I've watched in some time. I mean, shit -- if you're gonna fold, do it Saturday night, and let UConn up in here or something. That was almost as boring as watching the NBA, except for the fact that it had guys that at least tried to play defense. Jiminy Christmas.
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Saturday Studmuffins: Michigan State's Tom Izzo (Fo' Shizzo)

This is one of those deals where I'm left with no choice but to praise someone who's responsible for the demise of one of my teams, but I'm okay with it. Really. Reasons you're dying for, after the jump.

I'm not gonna lie: I pretty much despise Michigan athletics. Period. The Tigers typically do better than the Royals. The Red Wings manhandle the Blues. Michigan football has gotten the better of Notre Dame football in recent years, and now Michigan State has eliminated my Jayhawks. It's true that I boasted about KU hoops early in the season, and then had nothing to say last Friday night when the Spartans eliminated them, but after a great first half by the crimson and blue, I kind of figured it was in the bag.

Not so much.

But hey -- it was a rebuilding year for the defending champs, and they nearly made the Elite Eight, which is pretty cool.

Know what else is pretty cool? The Izzo.

He's some 335-136 in his collegiate coaching career, which translates to a heady .711 in the old winning-percentage column, which translates to one more guy that's a lot better than Herman Edwards when it comes to playing to win the game.

Now knocking off the 15th-seed Robert Morris Colonials in the first round doesn't get him many cool points. Eliminating a 10th-seed USC team that only won 22 games doesn't say much more. Beating KU -- did I mention that the Jayhawks were the defending champs -- by five, however, is nice work, and handling a Louisville club that looked like they were gonna steamroll everyone in the Eight is pretty good, too.

Tonight the Spartans made fairly easy work of #1 seed UConn, and will play for the title on Monday night. Their foe, by the way, looks to be Roy Williams and the Tarheels as they currently lead Villanova 70-57 with five minutes to go.

Mr. Izzo has twice been named Big X Coach of the Year, and once the AP National coach of the year. He's been a part of March Madness 12 times, and in those dozen seasons, his teams have managed eight Sweet Sixteens, six Elite Eights, five Final Fours -- including a streak of three in a row, and now two championship games. They're also five-time Big X champions.

It's safe to say that Izzo qualifies as a Saturday Studmuffin. I gotta admit I wasn't pleased to see them keep winning, but I'll quietly root for them to get 'er done come Monday.

Has anyone ever quoted Jimmy Buffet and Larry the Cable Guy in the same sentence? I'm pretty sure that no, that has never happened, and I don't care who you are, that right there is funny.
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Monday Miscellany: A Rock-Chalk Triple-Double the Hard Way

This will be a brief look at the defending-champion Kansas Jayhawks' tournament victory yesterday, as a larger foe in Michigan State awaits them, but there are a few nuggets worth loading, you know where.

The Kansas City Star has a brief synopsis of the game here, but if you're not feeling like reading that much, here're a few bullet points:

* The two teams combined for 52 points in the first half, which, for KU, isn't good.

* How the Flyers, who put up some 70+ shots, and scored only 43 points -- you do the math -- managed to eliminate sixth-seed West Virginia in the first round is beyond me.

* KU guard Sherron Collins had a magnificent afternoon with 25 points and an impressive all-around performance.

* The story of the day, however, was Cole Aldrich, who had one assist, 13 points, 20 rebounds, and 10 blocked shots.

* Aldrich's afternoon yielded the first triple-double in Kansas history since the 1986 re-birth of NCAA tournament recordings (the association began noting steals and blocks in '86) of such stats. Former Jayhawk Wilt Chamberlain would've had numerous had the stat been noted back when he played.

* The last tourney triple-double happened in 2003 when Dwayne Wade posted one (points, rebounds, and assists) for Marquette.

* The last tourney triple-double with blocks goes back to 1992 when a guy by the name of Shaquille O'Neal slammed one home for LSU.

* The last time the Jayhawks and the (Michigan State) Spartans squared off was in January, when the Spartans earned the W in East Lansing, 75-62. Kansas, however, won 13 of their next 14 after the game, notching (at least a share of) their fifth consecutive Big XXII title.

Some highlights of yesterday's game:

(video courtesy of Rivals)

The Spartans and Jayhawks will meet Friday night in Indianapolis for the Midwest Regional Semi-Final. The tip will be at 8:37, and the good guys will be wearing the Crimson and Blue.
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Monday Miscellany: Pro Bowls, Steroids, and Border Wars. Oh, My!

Not gonna lie. Don't really have much to say about any of these stories. Alex Rodriguez has "admitted" to using steroids, some folks think the Pro Bowl should be cancelled, and the Missouri Tigers and Kansas Jayhawks square off (with extra rancory flavor) this evening in some college-hoops action.

Rock Chalk,



and such.
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Wednesday WhatYouWill: Young 'Hawks Win Convincingly

Last night, at Allen Field House, the championship banner was unveiled, and Kansas took Florida Gulf Coast University out behind the wood shed.

I'll be honest: elover joined me for last night's game, and, our focus was more on adult beverage consumption than watching this game. Early in the first it was semi close, but never again after.

J. Brady McCollough of The Kansas City Star has the beat in today's paper, and Upon Further Review breaks it down as well. As far as I can tell, though, there were two highlights:

1) The unveiling of the 2008 championship banner was apparently quite a spectacle. I guess they turned out the lights and shone some lone beams on the thing, causing Sherron Collins to say, "I almost dropped a tear."

2) The other highlight also involved Collins. The Young No. 4 not known as Tyler Thigpen "had a career-high 25 points on nine-of-14 shooting -- including four of six from three."

In the end, the 85-45 beatdown of the Eagles meant that this young squad can handle undermatched ballers. The banner display meant a little more, hanging beside the ones from 1922, '23, '52, and '88, especially considering that it was officially displayed on the birthday of one Phog Allen.



Rock Chalk, and Happy Belated, Mr. Allen.
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Monday Miscellany: My Defending Champion Kansas Jayhawks Unsoundly Edge My Alma Mater UMKC Roos

I knew the Jayhawks were going to enter the season as a young, green basketball team. Never did I imagine though, that they would open the season at home, against the University of Missouri-Kansas City Kangaroos, and toy with the idea of losing.

A look at the schedule by non-KU fans would see this game and call it a bogus match, a way to get an easy win. And one would struggle to mount an argument against that theory. One might not've noticed however, who was slated to start for this Jayhawks squad. Have a look here, here, here, here, and here. That's three sophomores, one junior, one senior, and, uh, four of the whitest guys on the planet.

Even still, I was surprised when the Roos hit the floor and drained a couple of early threes for their first lead of the game, one they would hold until late in the first half. The clubs entered the break at a tie, but I was practically convinced that this would be the first upset of the season for KU. Twas not to be, though, as the Jayhawks came out strong in the second, and finished with a 71-56 victory. No surprise that Sherron "Keep it in Your Pants" Collins led all scorers with 16. Aldrich and Reed weren't far behind with 13, 12 respectively. Markieff Morris threw in some surprises of his own as he pulled down 15 boards. One win down; 30 to go.
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