As every school does, KU has some substantial rivalries. The biggest game of the season is always against Missouri. The angst between the schools stems back to the Civil War when Missouri was a slave state and Kansas a free state. The "free state" sentiment still lingers around Kansas activities, as is evidenced by both the name of a high school in Lawrence and an uber popular downtown restaurant. Kansas's other rivalry, although it's more of a rivalry for them than us, is with Kansas State. The K-State game is the second biggest game of the year, and one which certainly causes us to hang our heads low should we lose. (It happened last year...one of the National Championship team's few losses.)
Every year there are two of these KU v. K-State games during basketball season, and the first took place last night. Pete's friend Joe has the hook-up with tickets and invited us to attend the game. As always, the atmosphere in the fieldhouse was electric. It was the first game of the Big 12 season, the first game back from Christmas break for many students, and a chance to win big over a rival after a disappointing loss at Michigan State last weekend. Needless to say, the crowd was excited. The cheers emitted at the fieldhouse are unlike any other; it's not unusual to hear screams and whistles that sound like we've just won the national championship, despite the basket putting us up by 20 over a no-name team. The aforementioned contributing factors forced the decible meter into the red last night resulting in yet another fantastic Allen Fieldhouse experience. Fortunately the excitement resulted in a win over K-State, and despite KU going on an 18-0 run to start the game, and winning by 16 points, it was actually a pretty interesting game.
I could go on and on and on about how much I love everything about KU basketball, but you're probably getting bored and I have over things to do,m so I'll talk about my photo of the day. :) Today's shot is obviously a shot of the fieldhouse after all the excitement has dwindled. I love it because I feel it captures the history of the fieldhouse, while making it clear that KU is a team of the modern era. The colors are deep and rich and warm, and the spilled popcorn makes tells us a good time was had by all.
I used Pete's camera-- and telephoto lens-- to get nearly all of these pictures, and I got a BUNCH of good ones...including some action shots. Here is a link to a whole album of other basketball pictures. I'll try and post a few of my favorites on here later. Pete took a stellar picture at the game for his shot yesterday as well. Check it out on his blog.
My final comment (for you, Ted-o): Aldrich played beastly. :)
