2005-'06 at-a-glance

A year at Kansas Athletics produced gallons of sweat, hundreds of tired muscles and many milestones for the KU community to be proud of. On the field, in the stands and in the classroom, KU athletes continued to shine.

Big honors in the Big 12 Men's Basketball: A young lineup, under the watchful eye of Coach Bill Self, led the team to a Big 12 regular season title and tournament championship, the program's 49th.

Baseball: With a 43-25 record, this year's team garnered the second most victories in program history. After winning KU's first Big 12 Championship in Oklahoma City, Okla., the Jayhawks earned a trip to the NCAA Tournament, the first since 1994. 

Softball: For the first-time ever, the Jayhawks won the Big 12 Championship and advanced to the NCAA tournament for the second straight year.  KU finished the season with an overall record of 36-26—the most victories since 1997.

Players of the Year: Matt Baty, Baseball Mario Chalmers, Men’s Basketball Nick Reid, Football Brandon Rush, Men’s Basketball Serena Settlemeir, Softball

KU Football goes bowling
Head Coach Mark Mangino found success in Ft. Worth with the team's first bowl win since 1995. Players dominated Houston 42-14. The season also included a third straight victory over Missouri and an impressive win against Nebraska. 

Women's Basketball postseason pitch 
In her second season as head coach, Bonnie Henrickson led KU into the postseason for the first time since 2000.  The team defeated Northern Iowa 59-49 in the WNIT preliminary round breaking another streak, the first postseason victory since 1999.

Fans flock to watch 'Hawks

Men's Basketball: The Self Squad scored on the court and in the stands with crowds of 16,300 fans per game in historic Allen Fieldhouse. The average ranked 10th nationally; for the 11th straight year, KU placed in the top 10 for NCAA Division I schools. This also marked the 20th straight year KU led its conference in attendance

Football: Faithful fans set two records last season, all-time average attendance of 43,675 and single game attendance of 51,750 at the Nov. 5 Nebraska game.

Kansas Relays: This 79th annual event drew 32,000 spectators and the second largest crowd with world-class sprinters Justin Gatlin and Maurice Greene.

Baseball: More than 2,374 watched the Jayhawks defeat in-state rival Wichita State at Hoglund Ballpark.

Softball: The Kansas Softball team defeated No. 2 Texas in front of the largest crowd ever at Arrocha Ballpark (1,217).

Six succeed as All-Americans

Track and Field celebrated the success of Sheldon Battle (shot put, senior), sophomores Egor Agafonov (hammer, sophomore) and Paul Hefferon (5,000m, sophomore), Charisse Bacchus (long jump, senior), Cameron Schwehr (1,500m, senior) and Denita Young (javelin, senior), who all won All-American titles after the NCAA Championship competition. The number represented the most Jayhawk All-Americans since 1980.

Border Showdown: Tigers trounced  KU defeated Missouri 23-17. The Jayhawks won the trophy for second time in three years.

Grade-A athletes
A total of 205 student-athletes -- 51 percent of students-athletes on active rosters -- posted a GPA of 3.0 or higher to qualify for the Athletics Director's Honor Roll. Forty achieved a perfect 4.0 GPA.

Teams collected a 2.93 GPA average, the second highest in the 20 years of keeping such records. Seven teams recorded GPAs of 3.0 or better: swimming and diving 3.39, women's golf 3.35, men's golf 3.31, volleyball 3.28, rowing 3.14, soccer 3.09 and tennis 3.06.

KU football set a team record with a 2.67 grade-point average in the spring 2006 semester.