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Final Four notebook Kansas' Langford can achieve what his hero could notPosted: Sunday April 06, 2003 7:14 PM
By Albert Lin, SI.com NEW ORLEANS -- Keith Langford meandered across the stage with his headphones still on, nodding his head to a hip-hop beat. He sat down for a team press conference, never breaking rhythm, before turning off his MP3 player. The scene was reminiscent of the self-assured swagger of Langford's favorite player, former Michigan star Jalen Rose. This weekend, Langford is shining on the same floor where 10 years earlier Rose directed his Fab Five to the brink of a national championship. On Saturday night, the Kansas sophomore scored a game-high 23 points on a variety of easy layups, acrobatic drives, long jumpers and an exclamation-point dunk to lead Kansas past Marquette and into Monday's title game. "I remember watching [Michigan] play in this building in the Final Four," Langford said. "I really wasn't into basketball then, but it was all the hype, the mystique of the whole situation. He was left-handed, like I was, and as a kid, there were not many left-handers around. So I liked Jalen Rose and I've tried to follow his career since." Though Langford even wears Rose's No. 5, their games differ greatly. Langford is quicker and stronger and has a prettier jumper, but he gives up four inches and doesn't possess Rose's floor vision. If Langford keeps improving, he has the potential to join his Rose in the NBA. In the meantime, he gives opponents someone other than Nick Collison or Kirk Hinrich to game-plan for. "We talk all the time about getting the ball inside by dribble or pass, and Keith gets it inside by dribble better than anybody we have," coach Roy Williams said. "You need a third option scoring all the time; Keith has really supplied that for us and has done a great job. Sometimes he's overlooked, I don't think there's any question." "Getting attention deesn't matter one way or another. I want to win a national championship, then I'll be satisfied," Langford said. "I've been on the way bottom of things, not getting looked at at all. So everything that's happened to me as a player, I appreciate it." Langford was a late bloomer who preferred football growing up in pigskin-crazy Fort Worth, Texas. When he finally started taking basketball seriously -- basically because all his friends were doing so -- he had a role model in the next bedroom. His mom, Charlene Taylor, is a former player at Texas-Arlington who coached some of his AAU teams when he was younger. Though it sounds like a situation ripe for teasing, Langford's friends kept their mouths shut. "My mom knew more about basketball than a lot of their dads did," he said. Taylor is still Langford's biggest critic. After his 11-for-14 performance against Marquette, she chastised him for going 1-for-3 from the line. "She doesn't sugarcoat anything for me," Langford said. "I was the leading scorer in the game, and she still told me what I could do better. That's why I'm always pushing myself." Mom also is responsible for one of Langford's personality quirks. He has a longstanding habit of swapping footwear at halftime if he's having a bad game. "I'm trying to get that superstition out of my head and dictate the game by my play and not by changing shoes," he said. He's made the switch several times this year, but primarily early in the season. Still, he has five pairs with him in New Orleans and will bring three to the arena Monday night. "Just in case. You can never be sure." He also used to wear a pair of lucky socks for every game. The last occasion came on Feb. 24, 2003, when he hit a game-winning 3-pointer to beat Nebraska. "But I haven't seen them in a long time," he said. "I don't know where they are." It's one of the few things that vexes Langford. He is well spoken and quick with an opinion on anything, frequently shooting from the hip like the loose-lipped Rose. During the joint players-coach news conference, Langford was asked about Carmelo Anthony. "When Keith answered that question, it was the most nervous I've been this morning," Williams said. "He says some wild stuff."
On Monday night, the talking stops. All that matters then is what Langford does on the court. And if he helps Kansas to victory, he'll already have a leg up on his idol.
Stopping KansasGiven how Kansas blew Marquette off the court Saturday night and everything we've heard about the Jayhawks' transition game, excuse us for thinking that we're seeing the reincarnation of Jerry Tarkanian's UNLV clubs. "We do work very hard to be able to execute in a half-court offense, but if we get the break, we want to take that," Williams said. "That's the first thing we look for." Talk to Kansas players, and the word you'll most frequently hear is "attack." Sophomore Michael Lee: "We never stop attacking. Even when they seem to be the aggressor at times, we don't back down, we keep going and going." Senior Hinrich: "It's an attacking mindset we have: defend, defend, defend; run, run, run. And that's what we do." For all the talk about either defense or rebounding jump-starting its break, at the most instinctive level, Kansas' transition game is simply a matter of desire: The Jayhawks are going to push the ball no matter what. "It didn't matter if we made or missed, they were running up and down the court," Marquette junior Scott Merritt said. Indeed, what makes stopping Kansas even more challenging is how well the Jayhawks fast-break off made baskets. One sequence early in the game set the tone against Marquette. Golden Eagles guard Travis Diener drained a 3-pointer from the left wing to tie the score at 7; eight seconds later, Langford had sneaked ahead of the defense for an easy layup. "A lot of teams, when they score, they relax for just a split second. But you know when you play teams who like to play uptempo, you can't do that," Hinrich said. "Even when the ball goes through the net, we get the ball out and run. That's the way we practice every day, and it's the way we want to play in games." The challenge for Syracuse, which was able to overcome a Texas team that also likes to push the tempo, will be to remain focused and somehow, some way keep the Jayhawks' fast break in check. As coach Jim Boeheim said, if the Orangemen can't do that, they'll be in trouble. So how to go about this seemingly impossible task? Freshman Gerry McNamara: "We have to control the boards. If we don't, it's going to be a tough night. We have to control the boards and be efficient on offense. They are such a tough team at getting out on the break that we're going to have to send two, three guys back at all times." Senior Kueth Duany: "There's no thinking about missed shots, trying to get to the boards. If you don't think you can get [a rebound], you just have to get back on defense. That's what the coaches will tell us to do, and that's what we have to do." Sophomore Craig Forth: "I don't think there's any way to truly prepare for it, except to say, 'Get back on defense.'" Duany's and Forth's comments may be closer to the truth. But ultimately none of the Orangemen will know what works best until they've worked up a sweat Monday night. Take it from a reluctant expert. "I'm sure I learned what so many other teams have learned in the past playing a Kansas team," Marquette coach Tom Crean said. "You cannot prepare for how good that break is."
Guarding AnthonyLangford will draw the task of trying to contain Syracuse star Carmelo Anthony, who scored a Final Four freshman-record 33 points against Texas. "There's not one way to stop a player like that," Langford said. "You can't say, 'I'm gonna do this,' or, 'I'm gonna do that.' It has to be a total effort. I'm sure I'll need some help from other teammates. We just have to really do a good job, myself on the ball and some of the guys helping off the ball in case he posts up." Anthony picked up his third foul against Texas late in the first half, but he was able to avoid further trouble in Syracuse's zone defense and still give his team a boost offensively. His big body, inside-outside game and unselfishness make him a nightmare to defend. "You have to actually get on the court to see a player and make your own judgments," Langford said. "You can't really watch film on [Anthony], because guys at his talent level can adjust. If something's not working for him, he can mix things up." Williams doesn't plan to surprise Anthony with a zone to try to negate his one-on-one abilities. "I'm not a very good zone coach. I think Jimmy [Boeheim] does a magnificent job coaching the zone. If you were to draw a line of all the coaches in America, he would be on one end as the best at coaching zone, and I would be on the opposite, I'd be the worst," Williams said. "I'm not being humble, I'm just being freakin' truthful, because I hate it."
Counting his blessingsSyracuse senior Kueth Duany probably appreciates where he is and what he has more than any player on either roster. Duany's father, Wal, is a former high-ranking Sudanese government official who was imprisoned when Muslims took over the country. After five months, Wal was released and allowed to move to Indiana to enroll in a Ph.D. program, but only if he left his pregnant wife, Julia, and their four children behind. Kueth was 4 when he, his mother and his siblings escaped in July 1984, using a phony note from a doctor friend that said she needed medical care in London. The country fell into a civil war (estimates put the death toll at 2 million and counting) while the reunited family settled in Bloomington. Basketball soon became a way to help the children assimilate. The kids were tall for their ages, so their parents put the eldest child, Duany, on a team at the local Boys' Club. "He had success, and after that it was a copycat thing. All of us have been pretty successful at it," Kueth said. "Leaving a situation like we did in Sudan, our parents giving up everything for us, basketball has been a blessing to our family." Duany played at Wisconsin, making an appearance in the 2000 Final Four; sister Nyagon played at Bradley; sister Nok is a junior at Georgetown; and brother Bil is a junior in high school. Now Kueth has one-upped Duany by reaching the championship game with Syracuse -- which, not coincidentally, happens to be his father's alma mater. Wal Duany earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the school before returning home to work and start a family.
Loose ballsTwenty minutes into the Syracuse news conference, an overhead lamp blew out, sending sparks flying onto the stage below. Boeheim and his five starters looked up but didn't move for a few seconds, until somebody said to clear the stage. The Orangemen have never moved faster. "I thought one of us was going to get the Michael Jackson hair thing," said McNamara, referring to Jacko's infamous Pepsi commercial accident. "Somebody said it was going to be Kueth [Duany], but he doesn't have any hair." ... Boeheim got in a playful dig at Big East coaching buddy Jim Calhoun, whose Connecticut club most closely mimics Kansas' fast-breaking style. "I hope [the Jayhawks] didn't see coach Calhoun's diagrams," Boeheim said. "Or maybe they should have seen them, because they might get confused. I know I was confused looking at them." Williams has said that he's had to yell at Collison and Hinrich only a handful of times over their careers. "I think I probably got all five of them," Hinrich said. Collison agreed. "I've taken a lot of heat for four years for not getting yelled at," he said. "It's a good thing to take heat for, I guess." ... One of the lowest points of Kansas' season came on Jan. 25, when the Jayhawks blew a 20-point lead at home against Arizona and lost by 17. The turnaround came when the Wildcats began to play a zone. ... Boeheim coached Collison on USA Basketball teams in three summers. "It's amazing he turned out to be a great player with that handicap," Boeheim joked of his coaching Collison. "Roy was able to overcome it." ... When asked why Anthony should come back for his sophomore season, Boeheim said, "He can get to play for me another year." ... McNamara had a roundabout connection to his coach even before committing to Syracuse. Boeheim played four years for the Scranton (Pa.) Miners in the Eastern Basketball League. McNamara's family is from Scranton, and McNamara's grandfather was a fan of the Miners and has long been familiar with Boeheim. Kansas has won 12 straight NCAA tournament games against a lower-seeded team, dating to a 1998 upset at the hands of Rhode Island. The Jayhawks are a 2 seed this year, and Syracuse is a 3. ... The last time Kansas was a No. 2 seed was in the 1996 tournament, when the Jayhawks were eliminated by, gulp, No. 4 Syracuse. ... Kansas is the first member of the seven-year-old Big 12 Conference to play for the national title. Of the dozen league members, the Jayhawks also were the most recent to reach the championship game, in 1991. ... Syracuse has eliminated three Big 12 teams from this year's field: Oklahoma State in the second round, Oklahoma in the regional final and Texas on Saturday night. ... When Boeheim gets to the Final Four, his team always plays on Monday night. Syracuse lost the 1987 title to Indiana in this very building and the 1996 crown to Kentucky. ... Boeheim is the fouth coach to lead his team to the Final Four in three different decades, joining Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski. ... Kansas and Syracuse are among the winningest programs in history. Kansas ranks third overall with 1,801 victories, with Syracuse four spots back in seventh at 1,606 wins. |
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