1/13/2009

KU, K-State basketball notebook

Close encounter

LAWRENCE -- At 6 feet, 11 inches, Kansas State forward Darren Kent and Kansas center Cole Aldrich would be hard to miss in any airport.

Imagine the two of them on the same row on a plane.

That's exactly what happened recently when the two Minnesota natives returned to school from Christmas break as they found themselves seated next to each other on a flight from Minneapolis to Kansas City.

"I got in the seat and I go, (to the flight attendant) 'Oh, geez, I've got to set by another K-State guy? How did you do that?' " Aldrich recalled. "He goes, 'Man, I've got to sit by a Kansas guy.' "

That chance encounter surely was friendlier than it will be at 7 tonight when both players will be in the starting lineup for the Sunflower Showdown between KU and K-State at Allen Fieldhouse.

On the flight, the conversation leaned more to their Twin Cities high school days than the current rivalry.

"We kind of talked about high school games because we were in the same conference, and we talked about how the season was going for both of us," Kent said. "It was cool."

Kent, a senior from Apple Valley, played at Eastview High School, while sophomore Aldrich played for Jefferson in Bloomington.

"He lives somewhat close to me -- about 10 minutes away -- but we were never really on any AAU teams together or anything like that," Kent said. "He's two years younger than me, so we weren't really friends growing up, but we've gotten to know each other a little bit more since we've been here."

Aldrich, who leads KU in rebounding with 9.9 a game and ranks second in scoring at 15.3, said Kent was good company.

"I've played against him since freshman year of high school," Aldrich said. "It's fun to see another Minnesota guy I played with doing well at another school."

Kent, who averages 8.9 points and a team-best 6.3 rebounds for K-State, said the rivalry talk was limited to the past.

"No smack talk," he said with a smile. "Maybe a little high school smack talk, but nothing about the games."

More bragging rights

For Kansas and Kansas State fans, the two annual meetings between the teams are all about bragging rights.

KU guard Sherron Collins and K-State guard Jacob Pullen, a pair of Chicago natives, have expanded the rivalry .

"Me and Sherron both being from the west side of Chicago, my friends know his friends, my family knows his family and stuff like that," said Pullen, a sophomore from Proviso East High School, who leads the Wildcats in scoring with 14.3 points a game. "Whoever has the better game and whoever's team wins, that's bragging rights back home.

"They'll be calling his friends and saying, 'Jake won,' and stuff like that. It really makes the game a lot more competitive."

Collins, a junior who leads the Jayhawks with 18.1 points a game, said he admires Pullen's game -- and he wants nothing more than to send him back to Manhattan a loser tonight.

"He's another tough Chicago kid," he said. "We are hard-nosed, and we play against a lot of talent in Chicago.

"I never got a chance to play against him in high school, but you always know good players. I don't take it personal, but I just don't like to lose to nobody from Chicago."

Of the 5-11 Collins' game, Pullen said: "He's just a little bowling ball. Sherron's strong, physical and has good ballhandling skills, and he can shoot the ball well when he gets into a rhythm."

Family acquaintance

K-State sophomore forward Ron Anderson is still relatively new to the Sunflower Showdown, having played KU just twice so far.

But he does have a sense of the history between the two schools and of historic Allen Fieldhouse, courtesy of his father, Ron Sr.

"Luckily for me, my father was in the NBA, so he played with some of the guys that went to KU," the younger Anderson said. "He's good friends with (KU assistant coach) Danny Manning, and I talk to him every time we play them.

"It's a very big sense of history, and I appreciate that every time I step on the floor."

KU scouting report

Courtesy of Kansas State coach Frank Martin: "They're as good as anyone I've seen as far as getting the ball down the floor and getting early shots in the shot clock. They fly.

"And then they also do a great job on ball screens. The one thing, as you watch them on tape, they're a heck of a lot better defensively than they were two months ago."

K-State scouting report

From Kansas coach Bill Self: "(Martin) has them playing as hard as anybody in the country, not just our league. They are quick on the perimeter, have a guy (Denis Clemente) who's as fast as anybody in college basketball, (Dominique) Sutton is as athletic a wing as you can find, (Jacob) Pullen got 20 on us last year, and they throw inside bodies at you.

"The thing that impresses me the most is how they guard and how hard they play. They are terrific on the glass."

-- ARNE GREEN, Salina Journal