Varsity Kansas - The Blog

Basketball is in full swing now. Or is it? I don’t really know what “full swing” means, but maybe two games qualifies. Either way, it’s basketball season and we’ve seen some interesting things during the first two nights with a full slate of games.

Let’s start with Friday. I don’t know if the Heights girls can be beat. They missed their first 16 shots against South and trailed 14-0 after the first quarter. But the Falcons led at halftime and made the plays down the stretch to win.

I wrote about this a lot in the story, but Jennifer Lane is pretty much stone cold. Her perpetual calm demeanor isn’t always an asset, but it definitely is when the game is on the line late. She made six straight free throws in the fourth quarter and hit a key jump shot, and she did it while looking as though she was playing without any effort. That’s a compliment — the great ones always make it look easy.

Lane’s calmness is balanced by Amanda Orloske, who is the team’s emotional leader. She stays calm, too, but isn’t afraid to rein in a teammate who may be getting a little too emotional. This Falcons team is different than in years past because it doesn’t have a lot of height or experience, but I couldn’t have been more impressed with Lane and Orloske, and if the Falcons play another close game I think those two will make the difference again.

OK, now that the lovefest is over we can get back to other observations from Friday, and I have two. The first is that I was surprised Northwest was able to control the tempo against the East boys. I know a team can’t do anything about a team holding the ball and eating up clock, but during the past few years I’ve seen East execute its plan to run against opponents trying to slow the Aces down.

Coach Ron Allen said he wanted East to do a better job in the halfcourt offense, and apparently the Aces stayed patient enough against Northwest, because they eked out a close victory. Against Heights last night, it was a different story. The Falcons tried to run with East and had success for a while before the Aces took over. If you missed Jawanza Poland’s dunk on the evening newscasts last night, I feel sorry for you. It was pretty incredible — better than anything I’ve seen from a high schooler.

Also, Belle Plaine starting 2-0 is noteworthy. Not because the Dragons weren’t supposed to be good, but because the first victory came against Wichita Trinity. I picked Trinity to win the Central Plains League and Belle Plaine to finish second, so I suppose you can call Belle Plaine’s win an upset. But the Dragons are playing solid defense, allowing 84 points in two games.

As far as Tuesday goes, I was interested to see how Andover Central’s boys would stack up with Collegiate and how Collegiate’s girls would fare against Central. We got the fairly predictable results with Collegiate’s boys win and Central’s girls victory. Both those teams apparently looked pretty strong and are early state title contenders. It might even be a disappointment if Central doesn’t win it considering the talent it has. No pressure, Jaguars.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 1:02 p.m. and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.