Long Distance Jayhawk

That's Meredith in the parka, marvelling at the fact that some Park Sloper abandonded their Beamer in the middle of the intersection (side note: Meredith's a Duke fan, so I got her a Cameron Crazies shirt for Christmas. Great idea until I found out her mom did the same thing.)

You may have heard that the Northeast and New England got pummeled by a blizzard overnight last night. That’s actually a pretty accurate way to describe what happened, weatherwise, the last 24 hours. It’s actually been both beautiful and kind of a pain in the ass (I didn’t make it to the office because the F train suspended service in Brooklyn completely (I’m not going to count the two stops, Jay St-Metrotech and York St. as being enough BK service to count) and so I spent a lot of time working from home, watching SportsCenter and venturing out to take a few photographs). Anyway, I’ve had a lot of time to think about an idea that never really made much of an impact on me until I moved to NY. Up here, people are pretty serious about the Yankees and they all eventually bring up the idea of liking v. loving a team. I’m not talking about loving the institution (because, to be fair, I’m writing this in Jayhawk slippers that Meredith got me for Christmas (thanks, honey) despite the fact that she told me I had to stop getting KU branded paraphernalia) but loving a specific year. It’s like people and wine (I know that I kind of stole that analogy from Bill Simmons…evs…). They might like a lot of shit that comes out of a specific brewery, but some years are just better than others.

Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich seemed like they were pretty tight. Of course, Collison looked the other way on Hinrich's liberal policy towards monogamy.

So, that brings me to the idea of loving a team. I’m familiar with plenty of KU teams, pre-matriculation, but for my purposes, I’m only going to examine teams that I watched almost all of the games. We’ll start with the 2002-03 Jayhawks. This team was my team Freshman year and they were the team that made me love the Jayhawks. I loved Kirk Hinrich (duly lambasted in this blog for his “no kiss, no cheat” policy and possibly acknowledged for spawning the greatest camping name ever, “Kirk Hinrich’s Elf Children”) and Nick Collison, as well as Keith Langford, Jeff Hawkins, Gravey Boat, and Christian Moody (if I had a dollar for every time an announcer told the audience at home that God’s Faithful were braying “Moo” rather than “Boo” when Moody hit the floor, I’d have about $65…which is more than I started with, right?). The best thing about this team was that we had one of the best power forwards in Wayne Simien, who spent half season on the bench due to a dislocated shoulder. But we still managed to kick ass (despite the previously mentioned heartbreaker to Bear Down Arizona (I mean…come on…you’re a feline mascot…why not “Cat Down” or maybe “Scratch Post Arizona?”) and a couple of other losses (most curiously, given what happened at the end of the season, to UNC). The team seemed to want to prove they were incredible despite the setback of Simien’s injury, almost using it as a rallying cry (at the risk of sounding like the sorest loser out there, I’m still miffed about that Arizona loss and no amount of vengeance extracted will make me feel better about it…in fact, Kansas could play Arizona 32 times a year, and even if we won everyone of them, I would still be miffed about that loss Freshman year…that’s just the nature of sports hate, I suppose), making a glorious run to the National Championship and a stinging defeat at the hands of Johnny Buck McNamara (no idea what his first name is and I’m not giving him the satisfaction of a Google hit…strangely, I’m not nearly as bitter about this game, eight years later, as I am about the Arizona game). We were the first place loser that year, Roy Williams ran off to Carolina and I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. It was an agaonizing three weeks really. That team…I felt the highs and the lows as the season unfolded and I felt like I was a part of something bigger than just me. It’s a feeling that I’ve never had since. It’s why the 2002-03 Jayhawks are my first real basketball love (I did crush on a couple of UNC teams growing up, but my parents are alums and I didn’t know any better).

This is a team I love. Hands down the best mixture of chemistry, skill, precision and just plain fun.

So, my second love was the 2007-08 Championship team (I’m going to admit, point blank, that winning it all, coupled with actually being at the game when it happened, might have clouded my retroactive judgement). I definitely liked this team straight out of the gate. For the previous five years, we had been treated to a strange meshing of styles, between the last remnants of Roy Williams’ recruiting and Bill Self’s recruiting. We had some guys left over (cough…Keith Langford…cough) who didn’t buy into Toupee’s system and chose to stay, some who bounced out quickly (where are you now, David Padgett?) and some who just sort of played because they’re hardwired that way (Aaron Miles). I liked a lot of the teams that played during that transition period, especially some of the highflying shenangigans that the 2004-05 team liked to do (check out this video of ridonkulous alley oops for proof). The problem was that those teams, fun as they may have been, seemed like they were auditioning for the Globetrotters instead of trying to win games of basketball (a fact that became evident when we were ejected from the first round of the Big Dance two years in a row). 2007-08 came out and we were treated to a team that seemed to enjoy playing together, no one seemed to think they were the star of the show (though Brandon Rush kind of made it his mission to be the star just because) and we absolutely didn’t have some prima donna grousing about how he should be playing for money instead of BJs from jersey chasers (Julian Wright, that’sa  pot shot at you, assuming you know how to read). Watching that year’s team felt like a bunch of guys who met up at their home town park for a pick up game. They laughed, they smiled, they congratulated each other on each and every accomplishment and no one seemed to worry too much if things weren’t going so well. They just had fun. Which lead to a National Championship. We were, going into that year’s tourney, the weakest of the number one seeds. When all four number ones made it, we were supposed to lose to Carolina, the number one overal (we murdered them in the first half and maintained during the second for an all too easy victory over Hansbrough and the Heels (also, I loved that Roy buried the hatchet and wore that Jayhawk sticker when he watched the Championship game). When we beat Memphis, the team went down as my favorite of the last ten years (again, I admit that I might be too in love with that squad because we won the championship…whatever…this is my fucking blog, sue me).

Markieff shows some hustle. He's making it incredibly difficult for me to give him shit for being a slightly better Jeff Graves.

Which brings me to this year’s squad. I started to love a couple of the guys on the team last year (specifically Marcus and Markieef, along with Morningstar and Reed) but I never got a chance to really love them since 2009-10 was the Collins and Pony Show. The team last year was much like those Langford/Giddens/Miles teams. Fun to watch if you like clinical precision in your execution, but not so much fun to grab a beer or take a bong rip with (Editor’s note: I absolutely do not condone anything that isn’t a wholesome, cheap domestic beer).  This year’s team was starting to make me feel that love buzz again. There’s something about the way the team plays and the fact that everyone seems cool with being benched on a game to game basis. Plus, I love Tyshawn Taylor and watching the evolution of 0-Rob has been incredible (I hope that Manning deed’s over the big man handbook before he goes off to his first head coaching gig after the season is over). The Morris Twins are a legitimate item, rather than being Marcus and the other one. Here’s the thing, though…I was all ready to declare my love in this post (the idea of has been gestating for a while now, I’m just now getting it all out on digital paper), especially after Selby’s debut game (I mean, come on…kid almost knocked off Henry for the most impressive debut for Kansas (I’d argue that Selby’s debut is the more impressive, since Xavier got to log 27 points on woefully outmatched Hofstra, while Selby rained his 21 on a surprisingly tough to put away USC squad). Then, the Cal game happened. I know that we won by a healthy margin and that we did alright (Selby did more than alright and Markieff proved to be a worthy replacement for his brother, garnering Big 12 Player of the Week honors this week), but we lost our composure. There were too many ejections (one, Marcus) and too many technicals (what like three?). That’s not what I want to see. I definitely like this team, but I’m not sure I’m ready to love them (of course, we’ll probably blow Arlington out of the water on Wednesday and I’ll spend the entire recap saying things like “I love this team!” and “If I were dying and the Make A Wish Foundation asked me for one wish, it would be to hang out with the Morris Twins!”).

I told you I wrote this in Jayhawk slippers. Jealous?