COLLEGE BOWLS: SJSU, Cincy win. 5B
SPORTS
LARRY THE LEGEND
Vagabond Larry Brown — who coached Kansas to the 1988 NCAA title and led about half of the teams in the NBA — has SMU off to a 9-4 start. Page 3B LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD O LJWorld.com/sports O Friday, December 28, 2012
Hutch PK, OL to walk on at KU
KANSAS MEN’S BASKETBALL CLINIC
Happy holidays
By Matt Tait mtait@ljworld.com
They don’t have the buzz of the rest of the incoming recruiting class, but at least one could make an impact that is just as important. Place kicker Michael Mesh and offensive lineman Colby Hamel, a pair of Hutchinson Community College football players, announced recently they would be walking-on to the Kansas Mesh University football team for the 2013 season. Mesh’s addition seems to be the more intriguing of the two, though Hamel Hamel’s 6-foot-3, 305-pound frame at least makes him an interesting prospect. During his two-year career at HCC, Mesh was a secondteam NJCAA All-American and was a two-time firstteam All-Jayhawk Conference selection. He is expected to compete with Nick Prolago and Ron Doherty for KU’s kicking duties right away and appears to be an upgrade on what Kansas had at the position throughout 2012. Mesh, a Hutch native, made 12 of 15 field-goal attempts this season and tied a school record with a 47-yarder during a playoff loss at Butler. His 16 career makes are the most in HCC history, and his 186 career points are the most scored by a kicker in Blue Dragons history. Mesh made a visit to KU on Dec. 7 and said he liked what he heard in his meeting with KU coach Charlie Weis. “Coach Weis said I had a good chance to get the fieldgoal job, but I have to earn it,” Mesh told Brad Hallier of The Hutchinson News. “I’m going to get up there and just show them what I have and what I can do. Kansas is where I’ve wanted to play. I want to help them get back to being dominant in the Big 12.” Hamel, a second-team All-Jayhawk Conference selection in 2012, can play center and guard and started every game but one this season. Because they are walkons, neither player will count against KU’s cap in the Class of 2013, which currently sits at 24 players, 10 of whom signed letters of intent on Dec. 19.
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Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photos
KANSAS UNIVERSITY FRESHMAN BEN MCLEMORE, AT CENTER IN PHOTO ABOVE, stretches with hundreds of youths attending the KU men’s basketball holiday camp on Thursday at Allen Fieldhouse. IN TOP PHOTO, KU FRESHMAN EVAN MANNING HUDDLES with a group of youngsters. BELOW, COACH BILL SELF oversees the clinic on his 40th, er, 50th birthday.
McLemore cherishes visit with brother By Gary Bedore gbedore@ljworld.com
A long line of kindergarten to sixth-grade boys and girls stretched from the southeast end of the Allen Fieldhouse floor all the way to the southwest end Thursday afternoon. The 450 youths in attendance at Kansas University’s 2012 Men’s Basketball Holiday Clinic made it clear that one of their favorite players was redshirt freshman Ben McLemore, who, along with his teammates, signed a steady stream of autographs for an hour. “A couple people were telling me the line was longer than coach (Bill) Self’s (line). I don’t believe that, but everybody kept telling me that,” McLemore said with a smile. The 6-foot-5 St. Louis native returned to Lawrence on Wednesday afternoon after a relaxing 31⁄2-day Christmas vacation. He acknowledges the best present he received was not one of the wrapped gifts sitting under his mom’s Christmas tree.
The gift he’ll cherish forever was the opportunity to visit big brother Keith Scott, who is locked up in maximum-security Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Springs, Mo. Scott, who is eight years older than Ben, celebrated his birthday on Christmas Day. He has been in jail for five years. “It made my Christmas,” McLemore said of being granted an audience with his 28-year-old brother Sunday.
“It was great seeing him. I didn’t get a chance to talk a lot with him. The thing I’m grateful for is getting to go out there and see him. I think he was even more happy to see me than I was to see him. “He told me to keep my head up, just keep playing, keep doing what I’m doing, to have fun out there. That’s what I’ve been doing.” McLemore and his teammates had a blast Thursday,
taking part in drills with the youths at the clinic, which was held in the fieldhouse and the Jayhawks’ practice facility. “It’s great taking time out of our day to get to play with the kids and have fun,” McLemore said. In speaking with the campers, Self gushed about the ability of the high-flying McLemore, who leads KU in scoring (16.5 ppg) and is third in rebounding (5.7 rpg) entering Saturday’s 7 p.m. home game against American University. “He has a chance to have his jersey hung up there,” Self said, pointing to the south rafters of the fieldhouse. “He’s that talented. He’s an even better kid.” O
Self’s birthday: The campers sang “Happy Birthday” to Self at the urging of KU senior point guard Elijah Johnson. Self celebrated birthday No. 50 on Thursday. “I turned 40 this year. It’s Please see HOOPS, page 3B
Please see FOOTBALL, page 3B
LHS GIRLS BASKETBALL
Senior Kelly puts ACL pain behind By Benton Smith basmith@ljworld.com
Emma Kelly isn’t the only one who remembers the moment exactly. Her Lawrence High girls basketball teammates and coaches do, too. Playing against Blue Valley West in the Firebird Winter Classic last season, Kelly brought the ball up the floor for the Lions in the second half as coach Nick Wood called out their set. They were running “big,” so Kelly passed the ball away and began her assignment.
The guard came off a screen on the wing and moved down to the post, where she needed to set a pick and create an opening for one of Lawrence’s forwards. Wood recalls Kelly, then a junior, planting her left leg on the block in preparation for a screen: “It just gave out,” he said. “I just cut on it weird, and I felt a pop,” Kelly said. “I thought I had just popped my kneecap out of place again, because it had happened to me so many times.” What she felt, though,
was a different level of pain — much worse than an unstable kneecap. No one had any idea Kelly had torn the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. Her teammate, Anna Wright, was on the court when it happened. Initially, she didn’t notice Kelly had fallen to the floor in pain. “I didn’t think she was really hurt that bad,” Wright said. “I thought she’d be able to come back the same game.” The diagnosis came a few days later, and the news hit
the Lions just as hard as it hit Kelly. Wood still regrets the freak injury and wonders what would have happened if he hadn’t called that play. LHS, 4-6 at the time, lost to BVW by three in overtime and dropped eight of its next 10 games to close the season. “We had really started to figure out who we were and started to play the kind of basketball we wanted to John Young/Journal-World Photo play,” Wood said of the Lions’ state in late January, LAWRENCE HIGH’S EMMA KELLY (12) DRIVES past Kennedy Kirkpatrick during Please see KELLY, page 3B the City Showdown on Dec. 14 at LHS.