Loaded Jayhawks moving forward after ugly offseason
LAWRENCE, Kan. -- It's Friday afternoon, Allen Fieldhouse is still empty, and Cole Aldrich is sitting on the front row beside me, chatting about all sorts of things, waiting on the doors to open for the 25th edition of Late Night in the Phog.
He is funny.
He is thoughtful.
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| Cole Aldrich on Kansas' offseason troubles: 'Nobody's perfect. But you've got to act right.' (AP) |
"Why?" Aldrich said.
Yeah, why?
"You'll see tonight."
Time to move forward
More than 16,000 Kansas fans spent Friday night at Allen Fieldhouse, clapping and cheering and dreaming of the future. The players danced, the kids caught T-shirts, the highlights played on the video screen one after another, and it really was some kind of spectacle. All that history and tradition, all those people chanting. But more than anything this night felt like a celebration of the past ... or at least a celebration that the recent past is over.
So long, offseason.
We spent some wild days together.
But it's time to get going and move on.
"The offseason is over," KU freshman Thomas Robinson said. "We left it behind."
The Jayhawks have endured more stumbles heading into this preseason than any top-ranked team in recent history. They fought with the football team, Tyshawn Taylor dislocated his thumb and posted a bunch of stupid stuff on Facebook, then Brady Morningstar was hit with a drinking-and-driving charge that got him suspended for the first semester. Everything happened in the span of a couple of weeks. The incidents brought negative attention both locally and nationally ... and internationally, believe it or not.
"Look at this," said Kansas coach Bill Self, at which point he reached into a filing compartment behind his desk early Friday to remove what appeared to be some sort of newsletter. "This is the USA Times. One of our secretaries went [to Israel] and went on a cruise, and when she's on there she reads a headline that says, 'Kansas' Morningstar arrested for DUI.'"
Self now has that obscure piece of paper in his office. He keeps it to serve as a reminder for his players that anything negative that happens at KU is a big deal, and that it can shape the perception of the program worldwide. Fair or not, the Kansas Jayhawks are now the Fightin' Kansas Jayhawks, and Morningstar will forever be known as the idiot who went drinking and driving just days after the program embarrassed itself in those fights.
Meantime, Aldrich did nothing wrong.
He wasn't involved in any of the incidents.
But he's still labeled a Fightin' Jayhawk, too.
"It's frustrating, it really is," Aldrich said. "Sherron [Collins] and I came back and sacrificed so many different opportunities that we had, and we've been really frustrated [by the incidents]. Nobody's perfect. But you've got to act right."
Late Friday, everybody did. The coaching staff conducted a skit, the players put on a show, a 20-minute scrimmage closed the festivities, and Travis Releford made all six shots he took to finish with 15 points. Markieff Morris added 15 for the opposite team. Then the buzzer sounded, the players hugged, and Collins grabbed the microphone to acknowledge the fans, thank them for coming, apologize for the turmoil and ask for their support.
"I know there's been a lot going on," he said. "But we're moving forward. We're moving forward."
