Woodling: Last time KSU won at home …

By Chuck Woodling     Jan 29, 2008

It happened exactly a quarter of a century ago, and it hasn’t happened since.

On Jan. 29, 1983, Kansas State’s men’s basketball team trimmed Kansas, 58-57, in cacophonus and claustrophobic Ahearn Fieldhouse on the K-State campus – the Wildcats’ last victory over KU in their own bailiwick.

Who were those Jayhawks? Who were the last KU basketball players to lose in Manhattan?

A check of the archives showed that coach Ted Owens put a decidedly callow crew on the floor that night. Owens started three freshmen – Calvin Thompson, Kerry Boagni and Jeff Guiot – and a first-year junior-college transfer in Carl Henry.

Junior forward Kelly Knight was the only KU starter who previously had played in Ahearn, a stone relic that always reminded me of an oversized dog run.

On the surface, Owens’ inexperienced club couldn’t realistically hope to overcome the raucous anti-KU atmosphere. And yet they almost did : probably would have, in fact, if the Jayhawks hadn’t been outscored, 18-3, at the free-throw line.

Asked about the free-throw disparity – KSU shot 26 charities, KU only four (all by Henry) – Owens bit his tongue, rather than risk the wrath of the conference office. Instead, he painted a positive picture.

“I thought we took a step forward even though we lost,” Owens said afterward. “We kept our poise in a tough environment.”

Tough indeed, and yet I can’t gloss over the fact Kansas did not lose to one of KSU coach Jack Hartman’s vintage teams. Those ‘Cats, led by such semi-luminaries as Les Craft and Eddie Elder, would finish with a slightly worse record (12-16) than Kansas (13-16).

At least when the season ended Hartman still had his job. Owens didn’t. Athletic director Monte Johnson fired him.

Henry led the Jayhawks with 15 points that night 25 years ago. Boagni added 14 and Thompson 10. Knight scored eight while point guard Guiot showed some moxie with nine assists and only two turnovers while playing the entire 40 minutes.

Of those five KU starters, three would be a part of the start of The Streak the next year. Henry, Thompson and Knight played in the Jayhawks’ 63-61 victory in 1984. In fact, Henry scored the game-winning basket with just three seconds remaining.

Where were Boagni and Guiot? Gone and injured, respectively.

Boagni, who made the Big Eight Conference all-freshman team in ’83, lasted 10 games under first-year coach Larry Brown. The 6-foot-9 forward started the first six games, was benched for the next four and then quit. He transferred to Cal State Fullerton, then played pro basketball for nearly a decade in New Zealand.

Guiot, meanwhile, spent his entire sophomore season with the Jayhawks, but missed the entire conference schedule with a back ailment. Not that it mattered. Guiot had lost the starting point guard job to Cedric Hunter, also a sophomore, and saw the handwriting on the wall. He transferred to Pittsburg State.

Today Guiot is head coach at Southwest Baptist, an NCAA Division II school in Bolivar, Mo. He and the rest of his KU teammates are now in their mid- to upper 40s. Owens, who now lives in Tulsa, is 76.

And that’s the story of the last KU basketball team to lose a game in Manhattan.

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