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Hinrich, Jayhawks answer doubters
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Tuesday, March 19, 2002
The Kansas Jayhawks got an unexpected lift Saturday.
After suffering a severe ankle sprain late in the first half of play against Holy Cross in KU’s first round game, junior guard Kirk Hinrich returned to the lineup in the second round to help the No. 1 seeded Jayhawks top No. 8 Stanford.
The injury occurred with 35 seconds left in the first half Thursday when Hinrich landed on his ankle awkwardly after grabbing a rebound and a put-back. The guard didn’t return for the remainder of the game.
After the game against Holy Cross, head coach Roy Williams immediately admitted his concern for Hinrich’s status.
“Anytime you lose a great player like Kirk late in the first half, you have to re-evaluate. You make some adjustments,” Williams said. “Kirk has a severely sprained left ankle that will get a lot of attention over the next 48 hours. Kirk’s had a lot of sprained ankles over his career, and this appeared worse than in the past. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
And that’s exactly what the Jayhawks were forced to do.
The following day, during Kansas’ off-day, Hinrich was still visibly ailing during the team’s practice, and his status was doubtful for Saturday’s second-round game against Stanford.
“He certainly did not practice today and what his situation will be tomorrow, I don’t know,” Williams said. “Last night, I thought there was absolutely no chance of him playing. Now, we’ll just have to see tomorrow, and I certainly will not be making any decision until after our shoot-around. I trust Kirk Hinrich with anything in the world, except telling me the truth about him being able to play. He thinks he’s going to play. I will not jeopardize his health by playing him.”
The following day the coach and the player made a compromise of sorts. Following the team’s shoot-around Saturday morning Hinrich’s ankle had improved, but his movement was still limited. The progress was promising, but Williams still hadn?t made a decision one way or the other as to if his guard would play.
During the warm ups later that afternoon, Williams had decided to start Keith Langford in place of Hinrich, but the junior told his coach that his ankle had improved from the 12:30 shoot-around, that he wanted to play.
Williams gave him that chance.
Hinrich entered the game off the bench at the 12:52 mark, and scored eight consecutive points upon taking the court. The junior racked up 10 points in the first half and tallied 15 points in 21 minutes in the game.
“Being around Kirk two days ago, he could barely walk - I always knew Kirk was a competitor, but tonight he showed what kind of competitor he is,” Drew Gooden said.
Although Hinrich’s numbers hide the severity of his injuries, even the junior himself doubted his condition before the game Saturday.
“I didn’t know two nights ago if I’d be able to play tonight or not, but it felt a lot better the next morning and just got better almost every hour throughout the day,” Hinrich said. “But still I didn’t know even this morning if I could make it or not. Once I got in the game, however, it seemed to loosen up and really didn’t hurt all that much. What little pain there was, certainly was not excruciating.”
Doubters beware: With the No. 1 seed in the Midwest region, Kansas is expected to go deep into the tournament. However, 16th-seeded Holy Cross almost ended its title run in the first round on Thursday. The Jayhawks edged out Holy Cross 70-59, but the struggle raised questions as to whether or not Kansas had what it takes to make a run for the title.
“It is amazing,” Williams said. “We were 30-3, even the people in Kansas were sort of saying some bad things about us. We don’t have to be everybody’s darling. I said I was proud of our team after the Holy Cross game. I was honestly proud of them.”
But Williams’ players were well aware that doubters existed.
“For all the doubters that put a question mark on our team, I think they will slowly disappear,” Gooden said. This team has a lot of fight left in them, and we want to leave it all on the floor every game.”
But the real question the doubters are asking is how many games Kansas will have left.
“Our dream is to win the championship,” Nick Collison said. “It’s been our dream since we were little kids.”
