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1988 - A story of hope

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5 years 6 days ago #22146 by CorpusJayhawk
Kansas opened the 1988 season full of hope. Danny Manning, the best player in college basketball decided to return for his senior season. Among the many reasons Manning cited for his decision to return was a chance for one more run with his buddy Archie Marshall, who suffered a severe knee injury in the 1986 Final Four and sat out the entire 1986-87 season as a medical red shirt. Now the former high school standout Marshall was back joining fellow seniors Manning, utility man and part-time starter Chris Piper and seldom used Marvin Mattox. Joining Manning and Marshall in the starting lineup were the hyper-athletic Junior Milt Newton, emerging steady shooting sophomore Jeff Gueldner and fellow sophomore and highly recruited point guard Kevin Pritchard. While Kansas was not packed with top to bottom top high school recruits, they had highly recruited senior in Marshall, the player of the year favorite in Manning and an emerging star in Pritchard. That was the nucleus they were pinning their hopes on a great year and a deep tourney run. Joining these starters were key reserves in the backcourt were juniors Lincoln Minor and Scooter Barry and frontcourt players junior Marvin Branch and freshman Mike Mattox. The remaing reserves included junior guard Otis Livingston, the enigmatic sophomore swingman Keith Harris, walk-on football player Clint Normore and freshman center Mike Masucci. This was a team that had definite potential, especially if the Manning/Marshall frontcourt could deliver the magic expected.

The team opened the season ranked 7th in the country on November 27th in the Maui Invitational in Lahaina, HI. Kansas drew the host, Chaminade in game one and opened the season with a 27 point victory. Up next was was 11th ranked Iowa led by Dr. Tom Davis. Kansas looked disjointed. The whole was seemingly less than the sum of the parts and the defense was terrible as Kansas lost badly by a score of 100-81. That pitted Kansas against unranked Illinois in the consolation game. Things didn't improve much as Kansas lost to Illinois, 81-75. A 1-2 showing in Hawaii to open the season was not what 7th ranked KU and it's fans were expecting.

Kansas recovered to reel off 6 straight victories including St. John's in Allen Fieldhouse on December 5th. They also defeated unranked but always tough North Carolina St. in Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh, NC on December 19th. After taking 9 days off over the Christmas break, KU headed to Madison Square Garden in the Big Apple for a holiday tournament. The marquee game was then 18th ranked KU pitted against 20th ranked Memphis. KU looked tough and it was a nailbiter and KU came out with the victory, 64 to 62 taking KU to 7 straight victories and an 8-2 record. Things were looking up. The tourney final would pit Kansas against the host St, John's. KU beat St. John's by 9 in Allen Fieldhouse just over three weeks earlier. This time the tables were turned and St. John's handed KU their 3rd loss on the season, 70-56. As bad as that loss was, the loss the next game would be even worse.

Licking their wounds, Kansas headed from the east coast to the west coast to play unranked Washington on January 4th. While KU would emerge victorious with a score of 67-57, Archie Marshall would injure his other knee in a season-ending injury. This was a devastating blow to KU as a team and individually. Marshall provided a unique leadership and was in many ways the soul of this team. The Jayhawks still had their best player in Manning and their key playmaker and point guard in Pritchard. Marshall had shown he was not quite the player he was before the 1986 knee injury but he was nonetheless an essential part of this team. This was a blow that potentially spelled doom to this Kansas team.

Despite the loss of Marshall, KU beat Washington and headed back to Lawrence to the friendly confines of Allen Fieldhouse for one last non-conference game against American which they won handily 90-69. They would play three additional non-conference games in January and February.

Kansas opened the conference season at home against one of their arch-rivals, Missouri on January 9th. KU won that game in a back and forth contest, 78-74. They were searching for a new identity and style as Chris Piper stepped into the starting role full-time in place of the injured Marshall. Through 14 games Kansas now stood at 11-3 and was ranked 16th in the nation. Hope was beginning to return and players like Clint Normore stepped in, Piper showed he was a solid contributor and Manning and Pritchard were playing at a high level. The loss of Marshall was stinging but this team still had potential.

On January 13th KU traveled to Ames to take on 14th ranked Iowa St. KU lost by 10, 88-78 and were seemingly overmatched. Milt Newton, Lincoln Minor, Scooter Barry and Jeff Gueldner would at times show elite potential but would be wildly inconsistent as the season progressed. The team was enigmatic in their flashes of brilliance followed by near ineptness. The athletic Newton would look like an All-American one minute only to look unworthy of many minutes the next. Yet the Jayhawks were still ranked 16th in the nation and while disappointing at 11-4, hope still was the theme.

On January 16th, following the loss in AMes, the Jayhawks came home for another non-conference game against Hampton. It was a bit of a "get well" game in which KU completely dominated winning 95-68. Ranked 16th and now 12-4, KU was renewed and ready to take on Digger Phelps and the always tough Notre Dame team at the Joyce Center in South Bend, IN. They had a week to prepare.

On Saturday, January 23rd, KU travels to South Bend not knowing that their season is about to be turned upside down. Coach Phelps and the Fighting Irish edge out KU in a close 80-76 game taking Kansas to 12-5. This would be the first of 4 straight losses, the 3rd and 4th of which were in Allen Fieldhouse to arch-rival Kansas State by a score of 72-61 and to then 7th ranked Oklahoma by a score of 73-65. Losses always hurt but losses at home are especially painful. KU now stood at 12-8 and had fallen out of the AP top 25. The hope that was so vibrant at the beginning of the season was not but a faint glimmer and quickly fading. The team gathered in a closed-door players only session to clear the air. The talent was there, the coaching was there, they needed to excise the demons of losing Marshall and get rid of the inconsistent play. They opened the season ranked 7th in the country with the best player in the game. Many thought they were under-ranked and would likely climb the polls and even contend for a National title. But they stood at 12-8 and had lost two home games. Something needed to change. And change it did.

After the players only session, Kansas seemed to have righted the ship. They reeled off 5 straight victories taking their unacceptable 12-8 record to a disappointing but better 17-8. One of those 5 victories was against Kansas St. in Manhattan in a close 64-63 victory. At least they returned the favor. But all 5 of those teams were unranked. The meat of the schedule lay directly ahead with three straight games against ranked opponents, 6th ranked juggernaut Duke at home in Allen Fieldhouse, 4th ranked Oklahoma who beat them in Lawrence and 15th ranked arch-rival Missouri in Columbia. This was the acid test to test the mettle of this team.

First up was the much anticipated match with 6th ranked Duke in Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas had already lost an unacceptable 2 home games. Surely this was the game that would catapult the unranked Jayhawks back into the top 25. But instead, KU lost an unimaginable 3rd home game in another close game, 74-70. To add insult to injury, 4 days later on February 24th, KU travels to Norman where 4th ranked Oklahoma defeats Kansas 95-87. The demons of the mid-season swoon are starting to reappear and the now unranked 17-10 KU team is holding onto almost foolish hope. Danny and company are anything but Danny and the Miracles. Three home losses. 17-10 overall record. Unranked! Could the season be salvaged.

Much ink has been spilled pontificating on the importance of leadership. Archie Marshall was no longer suiting up and providing that leadership on the court. But he was making his senior presence known on the sideline. Senior and All-American Danny Manning was not going to let 3 home losses and a 17-10 record daunt his quest for which he passed up NBA millions. Steady Chris Piper, not a world high-flying, super athletic wunderkind by any measure, but a smart and steady senior leader without question. This team had that senior leadership and that was about to come to the fore. Disappointment was a more than apt description of the season thus far. But when you are a senior and you know the fortunes of a season are just as tied up and even moreso in the vision of what can be as compared to the disappointment of what has been. For Manning, Marshall and Piper, this season was still waiting for greatness. A 17-10 record be damned. Three home losses be damned. Dropping from pre-season 7th to unranked be damned. Batten down the hatches and full steam ahead. March is almost here and the record is now 0-0 and the new season beginning. Next up is Colorado with 2 conference games remaining and then the Big 8 Tournament and then the Big Dance. One more players only meeting and the die is cast. KU was about to cross the Rubicon.

On February 27th KU travels to the Tigers den in Columbia, MO. to take on arch-rival Mizzou. One bright spot on the season thus far was that Kansas had defeated Mizzou in Lawrence to open Big 8 play back on January 9th. That was a 4 point victory. KU would leave Columbia with a 5 point victory, 82-77. On to March 2nd, the unranked and now 18-10 Jayhawks traveled to Golden and decisively defeated the Buffaloes 85-64. Three days later, back in Allen Fieldhouse, Kansas whipped up on Oklahoma St. 75-57. Coming off this 2 game streak, KU had a back-to-back rematch with the Cowboys in Kemper Arena in the Big 8 tournament. The venue was different but the result was eerily similar, 74-58.

The Jayhawks are now 21-10 and facing arch-rival Kansas St. in the semi-final of the Big 8 tourney. The reinvigorated Jayhawks are looking to win the rubber match of this season series having traded home losses in the conference regular season. But Kansas St. had other plans and ended KU's hope for a Big 8 Tournament title and added insult to injury by not only beating KU 2 out of three but beating them in Allen Fieldhouse. The taste of defeat to an arch-rival was bitter indeed. The last piece of the motivation puzzle was in place. The unranked and 21-11 Jayhawks would head to the Big dance coming off of a loss as a 6th seed. But the fire was burning within. The seniors would not be denied. What would come to be known as Danny and the Miracles was about to be unleashed on the college basketball world.

KU traveled to Lincoln, NE for the opening round in the Midwest Regional. A decent 11th seeded Xavier team was the opponent. KU looked solid as they took down Xavier 85-72. In round 2 KU caught a break. In round 1, 14th seed Murray St. defeated 3rd seed and 14th ranked NC State. KU had defeated NC State earlier in the season and knew that NC State would have extra motivation if they played Kansas in the NCAA. But Murray St. ended NC State's season so Kansas faced 14th seed Murray St. in the round of 32. Murray St. gave Kansas a real scare taking the game down to the wire with KU emerging victorious with a 61-58 win.

The reginal finals moved to Pontiac, MI and KU caught another break in the sweet 16 facing a 7th seeded Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt had defeated the No. 10 seed Utah St. in the first round and then upset the No. 2 seed Pittsburgh in the 2nd round. But the upset drunk Vanderbilt proved no match for Kansas going down in a 77-64 loss.

The bracket was set and the basketball gods were chuckling at the poetry of the way the Midwest bracket was shaking out. The regional finals moved to Pontiac, MI where 4th seeded and now 20th ranked Kansas St. was the next KU opponent. KU had lost three games in the hallowed confines of Allen Fieldhouse. One of those losses was to Kansas St. Not only that, but Kansas St. had defeated Kansas twice already that season, the last of those defeats knocking the Jayhawks from the Big 8 tournament. Revenge was in the air. Rivalry was in the air. Hatred was in the air. But mostly a strong Kansas performance and ultimate victory was in the air. Kansas took down the hated foe Kansas St., ending their season, avenging the 1st of three home losses and extending KU's strea into the regional final and a chance at the Final Four against 5th ranked and 2 seed Duke who had defeated the No. 1 seeded and 1st ranked Temple in the East Reginal final. Oh the poetry. Kansas had just avenged the first of three home losses with the victory over K-State. No they faced Duke with a chance to avenge the second home loss. If they could get by Duke, Oklahoma was sitting on the other side of the bracket in the Final Four but must first get past No. 1 seed and No. 2 ranked Arizona.

This was the 50th anniversary of the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Final Four was just down the road from Lawrence in Kemper Arena in Kansas City, MO. The unlikely unranked and 11 loss, 6th seeded Jayhawks were joined in the Final Four by the second seed in the East, Duke, the 1st seed from the Southeast, Oklahoma and 1st seed from the West, Arizona. But KU had Danny and KU had the Miracles and the basketball gods were spinning their fates.

Coach Krzyzewski of Duke was confidant in his team led by All-American senior Danny Ferry and another Senior Quinn Snyder (oh the irony and sweet poetry). Also on that team was a freshman who would later make a name for himself in the NCAA tourney named Christian Laettner. But KU's All-American was better than Dukes All-American and KU dominated with a final score of 66-59. Quinn Snyder lost his first of a number of losses to KU, but the rest would be as the volatile and controversial coach of the Missouri Tigers.

Meanwhile over on the other side of the bracket, Billy Tubbs and Oklahoma was running roughshod through all opponents who took down 2nd ranked Arizona by 8 points, setting up a national championship final of Big teams. The basketball gods granted KU's wish. In consecutive games KU had avenged two of the three home losses that season. Now they would have a chance to avenge the third against Oklahoma. But 4th ranked and No. 1 seeded Oklahoma had already defeated Kansas twice that season. The Sooners were led by upperclassmen starting 3 seniors and 2 juniors. They had theft artist junior Mookie Blaylock as well as possibly the best starting five in Division 1 with seniors Dave Seiger, Harvey Grant and Ricky Grace and junior big man Stacey King. They led the nation is scoring and were known as the team that ran for 40 minutes. No one could keep up with the Sooners. If you wanted to beat them you had to slow them down.

But Kansas Hall-of-Fame coach, Larry Brown showed why he was one of the greatest. He developed a game plan where KU would run with Oklahoma. He knew that players like Milt Newton, Jeff Gueldner and Kevin Pritchard could keep up that pace if given a chance. And of course, Danny Manning could run with anyone. This, the 50th anniversary of the NCAA saw a first half in the national final game like no other. Oklahoma ran. Kansas ran. Oklahoma tried to outrun Kansas but they simply could not. It was frustrating for these Sooners to say the least. They were not prepared for a team to run with them. When the dust settled on the 1st half, ironically, the score in this 50th anniversary game was tied at 50-50. The gauntlet had been thrown. Both Tubbs and Brown had some half-time adjustments they knew would turn the tide in their favor. But who would prevail?

Both teams emerged from the locker room adjustments in hand. Always cocky Billy Tubbs knew he had the magic potion with a superior starting 5. He knew KU could not run with them for 40 minutes. Okay, maybe for 20 but not for 40. But Brown had no intention of running with OU for 40. OU had been pressed like never before. They had expended more energy than they realized in that first half. Brown knew the key was to pound the ball inside and play face-up defense, forcing the Sooners into more half-court. By the end, Brown knew his guys could outlast the Sooners.

Coming out of the locker room the Jayhawks slowed it down. They focused on strong man defense. Brown utilized bruiser football walk-on Clint Normore who wore down Harvey Grant. Meanwhile KU continued to play smart on both ends never getting in a hurry and finding good shot after good shot. KU finished shooting 64% from the field. High flyer Milt Newton finished shooting 6-6 and scoring 15 points in perhaps the best game of his career. Piper led the team with 37 minutes while Manning scored 31 points in 36 minutes. Three OU players played all 40 minutes while Stacy King played 39 and Ricky Grace played 34. Tubbs played only 6 players and Terrence Mullins played only 7 minutes. Brown's strategy of running the Sooners hard in the 1st half and then sending in bruiser Normore and playing in your face defense in the second half was brilliant. KU also relied heavily on the starters who averaged 30.2 minutes. Despite 23 turnovers by Kansas (7 steals by Mookie Blaylock) Kansas won in almost every other part of the game, outrebounding Kansas 35-30 led by the otherworldly 18 rebounds by Manning, 7 on the offensive end. Danny and the Miracles had done it.

Despite a 1-2 start in the Maui. Despite a 12-8 start after a 4 game losing skid. Despite 11 pre-NCAA losses. Despite losing three home games. Despite the loss of the senior heart and soul Archie Marshall. Despite the dropping from the top 20. Despite the 6th seed against 2 of the top 5 teams in the country. Despite the times of near hopelessness. Kansas, in back-to-back-to-back games avenged all three home losses and defeated perhaps the best team and the No. 1 offense in the country to win the 1988 National Championship.

It ain't over 'til it's over. Go Jayhawks 2019. We are clearly not the best over 40 games. But can we be the best over 6?

Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon!!
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5 years 6 days ago #22151 by Bayhawk
What a fun post! Nostalgia.

Regarding the championship game, I read (somewhere) that HCLB told the team NOT to get into a running match with OU. In the team huddle (outside of coach's earshot) Danny told the starters "F&%# that, let's go!" or some such. Then, at the start of the second half, Danny told the starters to follow HCLB's advice.

Don't know if it's true, but it makes a fun story,

RCFL

The end is nothing; the road is all.
-- Jules Michelet
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5 years 6 days ago #22155 by NotOstertag
My sophomore year!

The poetry of getting revenge on our 3 home losses to the same teams that caused them over the last 3 games of the tourney was sweet.

The other amazing moment was in the last home game when Archie Marshall came off the bench after wrecking his 2nd knee in 2 years, and got a final curtain call. Originally Coach Brown was just going to sub him in, call time out, and then sub him out. Danny Manning and Mark Turgeon (then an asst coach) conspired to have it play out so that instead, they'd get Marshall the ball and have him hoist up a a shot, which he did, which missed. I barely remember it now, but people were going nuts.

Milt Newton was also a great player on that team that seems to have slipped under peoples' radars. Crazy athletic.

"When I was a freshman, I remember Coach Naismith telling us how important it was to play good defense." - Mitch Lightfoot
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5 years 6 days ago #22156 by Wheatstate Gal
SWEET, SWEET MEMORY.

Hated Billy Tubbs’s GUTS! And those stupid “Cabbage Patch Kids.”

That game was the first and probably ONLY time I saw a game COACHED.

My Brutha....I too recall the tale (?) that Danny said let’s run with them, against HCLB’s initial game plan.

Great stuff, CJ!
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5 years 6 days ago #22163 by JRhawk
CJ - great post. Am wondering if you are craving some Coors Blue Moon 2nd Anniv, given your reference to Golden (13th para starting with "On February 27th KU - third sentence, Jayhawks traveled to Golden and decisively defeated the Buffaloes" (know you meant Boulder).

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5 years 6 days ago #22170 by CorpusJayhawk
Not a beer drinker, pretty much red wine for me. Golden was just one of those senior moments I am having more and more often. Just had Golden on the mind. Since Colorado left the Big 12 I have not thought about them or Boulder once. Too bad. That used to be called Allen Fieldhouse west. I do wish Tad Boyle was having a little more success. Always like seeing KU alums do well.

Don't worry about the mules, just load the wagon!!

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5 years 6 days ago #22172 by murphyslaw
Yes, I read that, too. Whatever, it was wonderful to relive the experience. Many thanks!

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5 years 6 days ago - 5 years 6 days ago #22176 by HawkErrant
Thank you for the story telling, Corpus, it was a fun read. There are, however, some clarifications/corrections I would like to make in the name of historical accuracy. Sources for these notes are Chuck Woodling's “Against All Odds: How Kansas Won the 1988 NCAA Championship” (1988), which captures AY1987-88 from recruiting that summer of 1987 through the title game and aftermath, and two articles linked herein.

First, Pritchard did not start the season as KU's PG.
Second, Archie was hurt in the Dec 30 holiday tournament game In MSG NYC against St. John's.
Third, it was never Brown's plan to run with OU in the NCAA title game. Never.

POINT 1.
Sophomore Kevin Pritchard was recruited to be and started his second season as the 2 guard for KU, not the PG. Summer 1987 Larry Brown brought in 4 JUCO transfers: C Marvin Branch (who started KU's first 14 games at C until being declared academically ineligible after the Fall semester grades came out on January 13), Joe Young (who never played a game for KU as it turned out he did not have enough credit hours to meet NCAA qualifications), and point guards Otis Livingston and Lincoln Minor to replace graduated PGs Cedric Hunter and Mark Turgeon. The roster that started the season was:
Name		#	Position	Height	Weight	Year	Home Town
STARTERS at season start in November1987
Danny Manning	25	F/C	6-10	230	Senior	Lawrence, Kansas
Archie Marshall	23	Forward	6-7	190	Senior	Tulsa, Oklahoma
Kevin Pritchard	14	Guard	6-3	170	Soph	Tulsa, Oklahoma
Marvin Branch	54	Center	6-10	225	Junior	Detroit, Michigan
Otis Livingston	12	Guard	6-0	150	Junior	San Pedro, California
BENCH
Milt Newton	21	G/F	6-5	185	Junior	Washington, D.C.
Chris Piper	24	Forward	6-8	200	Senior	Lawrence, Kansas
Lincoln Minor	11	Guard	6-3	165	Junior	Houston, Texas
Scooter Barry	10	Guard	6-3	175	Junior	Concord, California
Jeff Gueldner	33	G/F	6-5	180	Soph	Charleston, Illinois
Keith Harris	45	Forward	6-6	205	Soph	Santa Monica, California
Mike Maddox	32	Forward	6-8	195	Fresh	Reseda, California
Mike Masucci	44	Center	6-10	200	Fresh	Grandview, Missouri
Marvin Mattox	54	Forward	6-4	210	Senior	Pomona, California
Clint Normore	4	Guard	6-0	200	Junior	Wichita, Kansas
Mark Randall	42	Forward	6-9	200	Soph(RS) Englewood, Colorado
Sean Alvarado	52	Center	6-10	210	Sen(RS)	Washington, D.C.

KUFB DB and NC title game brilliant reserve Clint Normore joined the team after the end of the 
   KU football season.
Randall and Alvarado redshirted AY1987-88
The team had issues at PG from the start. Brown tried Livingston, then Minor, even Scooter Barry. Livingston and Brown had issues all along, and in the end Livingston was off the team by the end of the regular season.

By January 13 Archie Marshall was injured and done and Marvin Branch was out for academics, moving Danny to center, Milt to one starting forward and Chris Piper and his nagging groin injury to the other -- and Brown still had not settled on a starting PG. He decided to make Pritchard the starting PG with the January 30 game against KState. That move, combined with having Danny play as a roaming center, playing more away from the basket, and the elevation of Jeff Gueldner to the starting lineup in February, set the stage for the rest of the season.

SEASON END STARTING LINEUP
Manning
Pritchard
Piper
Newton
Gueldner

POINT 2.
No further elaboration on when Archie was hurt needed, except to note that the Dec 30 game, due to scheduling oddities, was the second time KU had played St. Johns in December, winning the first and losing the second after Marshall went down.

POINT 3.
“Don't run with the Sooners. That was the first warning on every team's scouting report, and the first words on every announcer's lips. So the Jayhawks ran.” - Chuck Woodling, “Against All Odds”.

From the onset Brown's strategy for playing OU in the title game was to slow them down. That was the plan. Chris Piper is quoted as saying the game plan was “We wanted to control the tempo and not get in a running game.”

The apocryphal story (which Bayhawk mentioned, and which I know I read in print somewhere in the past, but is not mentioned in Woodling's book or anywhere else I can find today) is that just before the game actually started Danny got his fellow starting teammates into a quick huddle, noted that they had played OU two other times this year, and they agreed that KU could run with OU. Don't back down.

The end results, and Brown's comments, supports the apocrypha.

Woodling quotes Brown after the game saying “We were concerned because we couldn't get ourselves slowed down” and the KU players “wouldn't listen to me” and “sometimes our kids are selective in what they hear.” But he also noted that “the fact that we played them 50-50, playing their style, helped us a great deal. When we went in the dressing room, their kids, I feel, felt we were for real.”

Here's Danny in a 2018 Sporting News article looking back at 1988 :
In Brown’s halftime speech, he encouraged the Jayhawks to play their game.

“We’ve played at the pace that they like to play at," Manning recalled Brown saying. "Now let’s play at a pace that’s more beneficial to our team.”

“We’re kind of looking around like, ‘Hey we’re doing pretty good getting up and down, but OK, we’ll see how this ends up going,’”


From a 2013 Newsok.com article :
“We weren't really planning to play Oklahoma's game,” said KU guard Scooter Barry, who played nine minutes in the game. “It was just something that kind of just happened in the heat of the moment.
Danny and Milt (Newton) and Kevin (Pritchard) just felt like we didn't want to show any kind of fear. Through just the adrenaline rush and the comfortable feeling of being in Kansas City, it was kind of a don't-back-down atmosphere.”


More from “Against All Odds”:

The Jayhawks had played Oklahoma's game and had survived. It gave them a boost. “At halftime we thought we'd win, no doubt,” Piper recalled. Now it was time for Oklahoma to play KU's game. By breaking OU's full court press, KU was able to slow the pace. “The biggest concern I had,” Brown reflected, “was to try to utilize the clock and get our big people to handle the ball. Their guards are so quick, and I thought if our big people handled the ball, Stacey (King) and Harvey (Grant) would have trouble defending us.”
----
Normore, the starting free safety on KU's football team, would wind up with half of KU's bench points [7 points going 3-3, including a trey - HE]. And after the game, few would dispute that the benches had made a big difference. Brown made 42 substitutions. He used 10 players, everyone he had except Marvin Mattox, another football player. Tubbs made just a dozen substitutions, using 6 players in all. In the first half, the only OU starter rested was (Ricky) Grace, and the senior guard was spelled for just three minutes.


=====

That coaching difference, especially Brown's giving in and going with the flow in the first half and substituting throughout the game to enable KU to stay fresher than OU -- combined with the belief of the Jayhawk players that they could run with OU to start the game and doing so would surprise them, and the rest of the college basketball world – has always been, at least in this Jayhawk's mind, the single biggest factor (aside from Danny Manning himself, of course) in KU wearing down OU in the end for the win.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." - Mark Twain "Innocents Abroad"
Last Edit: 5 years 6 days ago by HawkErrant.
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