KU has early edge over Tigers

Mid-week musings while wondering if Terry Allen received any write-in votes in Tuesday’s election Â

If you go by comparative scores, Kansas will have a better men’s basketball team than Missouri this season. Two days before KU walloped EA Sports East All-Stars, 111-94, on Monday night, Missouri had to go into overtime to defeat the traveling EA club, 81-80, in the Hearnes Center.

What do those scores mean? Not much, really. Missouri, for instance, missed 24 of 35 free-throw attempts. That’s right. The Tigers shot a brutal 31.4 percent at the foul stripe. Center Arthur Johnson was the primary offender, bricking all nine of his charity attempts.

Ah, but it was early. MU coach Quin Snyder probably hadn’t installed his free-throw offense yet.

Still, on the morning line it appears the Tigers may miss Clarence Gilbert and Kareem Rush a lot more than the Jayhawks will miss Drew Gooden and Jeff Boschee.

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By the way, Kansas easily won the exhibition opener attendance battle. The Hearnes Center was only about half full last Saturday night while KU officials announced Monday’s crowd as 16,000, only 300 under capacity.

I’m not sure there were 16,000 on hand, but that’s close enough and doubly impressive when you consider the popular musical “Rent” was being performed not too far away at the Lied Center.

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Former Colorado forward D.J. Harrison was roundly booed, particularly when Harrison fouled out after playing just 14 minutes and scoring only four points for the EA Sports bunch.

Harrison, who had a couple of flare-ups with Gooden last season, refused to talk to the media afterward.

Harrison’s younger brother, David, still at Colorado and known as the “Mouth of the South” Â the Harrisons are from Nashville, Tenn. Â was an outspoken critic of the Jayhawks in general and Gooden in particular more than once during his freshman season.

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New sign above KU locker room entrance in Allen Fieldhouse: “Jayhawk fans: Players and coaches will no longer sign basketballs.”

And with good reason.

“We found an awful lot of balls were showing up on eBay and on the Internet and it became a big concern for us,” said Richard Konzem, KU senior associate athletic director.

Every year KU’s players and coaches autograph 1,500 basketballs. People can buy them at KU stores with all the profits ticketed for Big Brothers and Big Sisters Inc.

KU players and coaches will continue to sign caps, T-shirts, pennants, programs, etc.

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Bill Hougland, one of the starters on KU’s 1952 NCAA championship team, reports the K-Club has raised about $800,000 of the $2.6 million it needs to build an 8,000-square-foot KU Athletic Hall of Fame on the east side of Allen Fieldhouse. “It’s going to take awhile,” Hougland said about the fund-raising.

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An Allen Fieldhouse first? Former Jayhawk Adonis Jordan may have been the first player from an opposing team ever to receive a standing ovation. KU fans wasted no time reverting to form, though, when the next EA Sports player was introduced. They booed Corey Anders.

Jordan’s legacy: He was Kansas when Kansas wasn’t cool.

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For a couple of minutes midway through the first half, I thought KU’s Bryant Nash, a two-year bench-warmer, had arrived. First, Nash drilled a three-pointer. Moments later, the 6-foot-6 junior made a nifty entry pass to Nick Collison for an assist, then a minute or so after that he blocked a shot.

All well and good, but coach Roy Williams said he wants Nash to become more of a force on the boards.

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Junior college transfer Jeff Graves scored eight points and grabbed six boards in 10 minutes. Not bad for a guy who isn’t officially a member of the team and won’t be until he runs 6 1/2 laps on the Memorial Stadium track within 12 minutes. Everybody has to do it, Williams said. No exceptions.