3/21/1997

Now, It's Anyone's Guess: Kansas Jolted by Arizona

By TIMOTHY W. SMITH
March 22, 1997

Mike Bibby

If they were going to reach the Final Four, much less win a national championship, the Kansas Jayhawks, the No. 1 team in the nation and the top-seeded team in the Southeast Regional, knew they would eventually run into a team that would force them to use all of their grit, guile and muscle.

Every game on the road to Indianapolis could not be a stroll through the meadow. And tonight at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center, Kansas ran head-on into Arizona -- a team that has been carrying a chip on its shoulder since the Jayhawks knocked it out of the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament's Round of 16 last year.

In a pitched battle of wills and late 3-pointers, Arizona eliminated Kansas with an 85-82 victory in a regional semifinal that was sealed only after Jayhawk forward Raef LaFrentz's desperation 3-pointer with one second to play glanced off the front of the rim.

The Wildcats will play Providence, which defeated 14th-seeded Tennessee-Chattanooga, 71-65, tonight in the other semifinal, in the final here on Sunday.

Providence (24-11) and Arizona, a surprise matchup, should prove interesting. It is quickness versus quickness. May the fastest gun move on to the Final Four.

LaFrentz's final miss in the Arizona-Kansas game came at the end of an intense two-minute comeback by the Jayhawks in which they cut a 10-point lead to 1 but were never able to draw even or go ahead. During those final two minutes, Kansas hit three straight 3-pointers but then was unable to connect on the fourth.

"I thought it was a great, great basketball game," Arizona Coach Lute Olson said. "It was two teams that were not going to back down."

This time the Wildcats (22-9) let the Jayhawks (34-2) sample the bitter taste of failed expectations.

It was a crushing defeat for Kansas, a deeply talented team that was a consensus to win a national championship. And with the Jayhawks out of the way, it is anyone's tournament.

"I told the team that life isn't always fair," said Kansas Coach Roy Williams, his voice cracking and his eyes red-rimmed and watery.

"It's been a dream season. But we just didn't reach our final dream. That happens sometimes in life."

C'est la vie was not an attitude that Arizona entered tonight's game with. It wanted the Jayhawks and it wanted them badly.

"The message we wanted to send was, we weren't intimidated at all," said Arizona guard Miles Simon, who scored 17 points. "We read the front page of the Birmingham paper and the headline was 'Kansas and those other guys.' We thought that was very disrespectful. We had something to prove."

If the newspaper raised the ire of Arizona, then Kansas needed to do a better job of boxing out the paper boy at the opposing team's hotel. It certainly had its problems keeping Arizona center A. J. Bramlett in check. He pulled down 12 rebounds, scored 12 points and proved to be a big pain in the neck.

The Wildcats managed to neutralize the Jayhawks' biggest weapons -- their 6-foot-11-inch tandem of LaFrentz and center Scot Pollard. LaFrentz was held to just 2 points in the first half (1 of 2 from the field) and finished with 14 points. Pollard was held scoreless, going 0 of 1 from the field, with just 5 rebounds. He was saddled with foul trouble and played just 20 minutes.

At his team's practice this morning, Olson laid down a terry-cloth challenge to his inside players.

"The post guys were going through their shooting and I asked them to stop," Olson said. "I brought out four towels and laid them on the floor and asked them if anyone felt like they needed to surrender to step forward."

There were no takers.