It is a sad morning in Jimbo’s world. My beloved Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball team lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament last night.
My son will graduate from college in a couple of months and the last time that Kansas lost in the first round, I hadn’t even met his mother. I remember the 1978 loss to UCLA, but not very well. It’s been a long time. We have kind of a basketball tradition around here. We respect our traditions more than we count the wins-- hence the court at Allen is named after James A. Naismith, the only losing coach Kansas ever had, but the guy who invented the game. But it never feels good to lose and the Jayhawks win a lot.
I remember the 1991 NCAA tournament when Kansas struggled in the first round against New Orleans (also a 3 seed vs. a 14 seed like last night), and we all figured it was a rebuilding year and getting to the tournament was a victory in itself. They handled Pittsburgh in the second round and we figured that was as far as they would go, because their opponent in the round of 16 was Indiana, a two-seed and a powerful team. We figured if the Hawks could keep it close it would be the icing on the cake, but when it was all over, Kansas won by eighteen. Next up was Arkansas, a one-seed, and one of the top teams in the country. Arkansas was a running team and quick on defense. They called their style “forty minutes of hell.” Kansas got down big in that game in the first half and we figured it was all over, but it had been a respectable season.
I still refer to that game as “twenty minutes of hell,” because an out manned Kansas team dug themselves out of a deep hole that only the true believers could have imagined, and there was twenty minutes of heaven. I was living in Lawrence at the time. When that game ended we went out on the front porch and there were fireworks and horns honking all over town.
You had to figure the run was over the next weekend when the Jayhawks went up against North Carolina, also a one-seed, in the final four. Of course the coach of Carolina was Dean Smith, one of the greatest coaches who ever lived, and one in a long line of Kansas Alums who shaped the world of college basketball, along with Forrest “Phog” Allen and Adolph Rupp, two Kansas legends. It may have been the best final four there ever was with Duke knocking off UNLV and when the dust had settled, the Jayhawks beat Carolina and went to the championship game.
Although Kansas lost to Duke in the championship game by seven, it never seemed like they were in it, but that was OK. There was a big parade the following Saturday and I remember it like it was yesterday.
When I lived in Lawrence, several times reporters for the Lawrence Journal-World approached me and I was quoted in the paper several times. On the day of the parade one of them asked me why I was there. I told him because the team had gone a lot farther than anyone thought they would and I was proud of them. He asked me, “Even though they lost?” I said yes, they played better than anyone could expect.
The quotation in the paper was something like “I came to support them even though they lost.” While technically correct, it sounded wrong. I threw away the paper because the quote made me sound chickenshit, so I can’t give you the exact wording. It taught me a lesson about how to talk and how not to talk. It taught me the dangers of using the words yes and no.
There were more good times than I can count with the Kansas basketball program. When I was moving recently, I came across the Kansas City Star’s story about the 1988 national championship game. I salute them for a great headline.
Danny and the Miracles Hit Number One
That was a Monday night I’ll always remember. There have been more final four appearances than I can keep track of in my head. There was the game in December of 1989 that the Hawks scored 150 points against Kentucky. There was the 1986 team that lost to Duke in the Final Four in Dallas-- arguably the greatest team Kansas has put on the floor since Wilt left. Greg Dreilling and some of the other members of the team cut their hair in the fashion of the great Clyde Lovellette. There was the team with Paul Pierce and Raef LaFrenz that came up short, also, but they were all great to watch.
And speaking of Wilt, I saw video of him the other night at Allen when they retired his number and, after years of being estranged from the campus, we all found out he still bled crimson and blue.
For all the seniors who played their last game last night, I’m sure it was one of the toughest evenings of their lives, but like me, they will always remember some winter nights on Dr. Naismith’s court, in Dr. Allen’s building down at the foot of Mt. Oread. While many an outsider will be amused at the tradition of the national anthem, the alma mater, the rock chalk chant and I’m a Jayhawk, those who have been there will understand. Winter will turn to spring and spring to summer, and then this fall, it will start all over again and there will be another basketball season. The seniors will pass the baton to the next class, and the underclassmen will carry on the tradition.
They can remember, as I always will, the last three words of Wilt Chamberlain’s speech when they retired his jersey.
Rock chalk Jayhawk.
Because here in Jimbo’s world we remember the past, celebrate the present and look forward to the future, even when the recent past gives us the blues.
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