Kansas-Missouri: Jayhawks Need To Play Relaxed in Otherwise Tense Border War

You know the story by now, right?

On Aug. 21, 1863, Confederate guerrilla fighter William Quantrill stormed the streets of downtown Lawrence, KS after spending the night atop Mount Oread—where the University of Kansas now lies. 

Once around the area that is now Massachusetts Street (made famous now from students flooding into the street after Final Four appearances), Quantrill and his men murdered, raped, pillaged, and practically burnt Lawrence to the ground. 

Kansans, and especially Jayhawks (a mythical bird, yes, but one that gets its name from the abolitionist warriors fighting to keep Kansas a slavery-free state), have not forgotten what Quantrill and his fellow Missouri Bushwhackers did just over 146 years ago. 

You're saying, "That happened 146 years ago, get over it." Fans from both sides would say au contraire.  While the football rivalry tends to bust the doors of hatred wide open—this year's game saw Missouri wearing suspiciously deep grayish-green helmets and pants (the color of Confederate uniforms), and the Jayhawks wearing long, red socks (symbolizing the "Red Leggers" or Abolitionist Guerillas from Lawrence)—the same hatred seeps into the two basketball games the teams play in every season. 

Make no mistake, this is the greatest rivalry in all of college sports, and the rivalry will be renewed tonight in Allen Fieldhouse at 9:00 PM EST. 

Missouri comes into Lawrence boasting a 15-4 record overall, and a 3-1 record in the Big 12, which is currently good enough for a tie for second place. 

The Kansas Jayhawks will in all likelihood be ranked second in the nation going into tonight's game with an 18-1 record overall and league best 4-0 record. 

So what does Kansas have to do to continue their march towards their second national title in three years?

Tonight, they need to do something they haven't done for about a month. It is really simple. The Jayhawks need to play loose, carefree, and relaxed. 

Against Cornell, the Big Red opened the game making just about everything they looked at, and KU got anxious, on both sides of the ball, but mainly on the offensive end. 

Against Tennessee, it was a similar story. Tennessee played well, made a ton of shots and KU was playing catch-up for most of the game. The offense felt forced, and Sherron Collins tried to do too much. 

Against Nebraska, it was a similar story. Luckily, Kansas relied heavily on its advantage in talent to get the job done, not playing well, but doing enough to win. 

Against Texas Tech, there was a hint of carefree play, and it led to a huge halftime lead. Then the Jayhawks came out after halftime and played like they did against Michigan, (letting the Red Raiders bring it within a manageable deficit), and relied once more on their talent advantage to end up winning by 25, but you felt like they could have won by 40 had they just relaxed. 

Against Baylor, the Jayhawks just ran into what I think could be the third best team in the league. Baylor played about as well as they could, and the Jayhawks played well. However, the close score throughout really never let the Jayhawks get into a relaxed groove. 

Finally, against Iowa State, it was more of the same. The Jayhawks started the game on a 8-0 run, and before anyone knew it, it was 14-13 Iowa State. The Jayhawks tensed up, stopped playing relaxed but again, Kansas relied on a mediocre team being mediocre and getting enough out of their own guys. 

Don't be fooled, Missouri isn't going to make it easy to play relaxed. Their vaunted "40 Minutes of Hell" defense—a full-court press for nearly two-thirds of every game, changing up their scheme within that constant press—has brought opponents to their knees. 

This is exactly why Kansas must play relaxed basketball tonight. Playing tense tonight could very well lead to Kansas' first home loss in 53 games. 

There was a case study for this last year. Kansas went to Columbia for the first of the two games. Missouri pressed, Kansas played tense (especially in the second half), and they turned the game result over to the Tigers. 

Then, in the return game in Allen Fieldhouse, the Jayhawks played loose, beat the press so many times it forced Missouri to get back and actually play defense. The result?  A 90-65 win. 

The Kansas assistance coaches will run down the tendencies of Missouri when they press, and KU players should take note. However, they'll forget 80 percent of that information once they face a double-team in the corner of the floor on an inbound pass. 

As soon as Kansas breaks the press, they can use their athleticism to get the ball down the floor quickly, which should result in plenty of high-percentage chances. 

The Jayhawks just need to have fun tonight. Sherron Collins will feed off of the crowd, as it will be his last home game against Missouri of his four-year Kansas career. He'll surely have words of wisdom for the underclassmen, which should help settle any nerves they have. 

Collins will be having fun, and the rest of the Jayhawks better have fun too. How many other people can say they got to play in Allen Fieldhouse, on an 18-1 team, a team with a chance of winning another national title? Not many. 

If the Jayhawks can relax, play their game, and enjoy the atmosphere that is certain to be rowdy, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the Jayhawks will take a perfect 5-0 league record into their other rival, Kansas State's backyard on Saturday night.