KJ’s BB Newsletter February 4, 2001
A Good Week
Pro
Report
Notwithstanding the bad news about Luke Recker’s knee, basketball news this week was pretty good overall, from my standpoint at least.
On
Wednesday, I took in the Drake-Evansville game at the Knapp Center.
After an initial flurry by the Purple Aces, Drake took charge and ran to
victory. It was just what I needed
to cure the mid-winter blues that usually creep up on me in early February.
The Bulldogs looked good and Andre Sola, who transferred to Drake from
George Washington, looked like a MVC all-star.
Unfortunately, they didn’t keep up the good work on Saturday night
against Bradley, where they absorbed a tough 62-47 loss on their home court.
Hopefully, the Dogs will finally win one on the road this Wednesday when
they travel to Creighton.
The
next night I tuned in the Duke-North Carolina game which was played at Cameron
Indoor Stadium. Of course, everyone
expected the No. 2 Blue Devils to win at home.
I was pulling for the Tarheels, mainly because their coach Matt Doherty
was an assistant under Roy Williams at KU for seven years.
And, wonder of wonders, the Carolina Blue ended up winning, helped by a
ref’s appropriate call that normally wouldn’t be called against a home team
in the waning seconds. It’s good to occasionally see referees that have some guts.
Then
on Saturday, I didn’t even work up a sweat during KU’s relatively easy win
over Texas. Except for the last six
minutes of the first half, when the Hawks let the Longhorns creep to within two,
KU made this one look like a light workout.
There’s an ominous cloud on the horizon, though, as dangerous Iowa
State comes to Allen Fieldhouse Monday night for a game televised on ESPN
featuring the two league leading teams. Their
followup match will be held in Ames on the 17th.
Back
to Recker. The broken kneecap looks
to keep him off the floor through the end of the regular season, if not beyond.
It’s really a shame. Recker’s
already had enough bad luck to last a career, and Iowa will greatly miss him
during their run down the stretch. He
has carried the Hawkeyes to a three-way tie for the league lead.
Hopefully, though, Iowa can follow Drake’s lead in overcoming the loss
of key players. The only good news
in all this is that the Hawks have had a week off to make the necessary
adjustment. They next play the OSU
Buckeyes in Iowa City Wednesday night.
PRO REPORT
Since
Rick Pitino left the Boston Celtics, former KU star Paul Pierce has led the team
to an 8-4 record. On Friday night
he scored 40 points.
It
was good to see former Cyclone Marcus Fizer finally round into form, scoring a
NBA career-high 26 points for the Bulls Saturday night.
He’s had a tough year, struggling to achieve the high expectations
resulting from his All-American year. Through 39 games, Fizer is averaging 7 points and 4 rebounds.
Former Clone Fred Hoiberg is getting some quality time for the Bulls,
particularly at crunch time toward the end of games, scoring an average of 7.2,
with 3.5 rebounds.
Raef
LaFrentz, former Jayhawk from Monona, IA, has led the Denver Nuggets to a 27-21
record, scoring 12.1 ppg and grabbing an average of 7.3 rebounds.