Jayhawks must respect Oklahoma State now

By Chuck Woodling     Feb 9, 1988

Who are those guys?

That’s what everybody wanted to know after Oklahoma State pillaged the Big Eight’s northern basketball outposts last week, leaving Nebraska and Iowa State smoldering in ruins.

Oklahoma State…? That’s right. The Cowboys won for the first time since 1973 in Lincoln (72-56), then hustled over to Ames and notched an 80-78 overtime triumph.

Okie State had dropped 24 of its previous 26 conference road games before heading north last week and now second-year Oklahoma State coach Leonard Hamilton looks like a wonder-worker.

“This team has been slow to come together,” Hamilton remarked. “I think some of our guys were getting discouraged, but this has to make them feel better about themselves.”

Hamilton will find out how much better on Wednesday night when the Cowboys try to maintain the momentum against Kansas as the Big Eight regular season race reaches the halfway mark.

Oklahoma State is surging with three first-year starters. One’s a freshman. In fact, 6-7 Richard Dumas is a lock for the Big Eight freshman of the year prize. But the other two newcomers are a sophomore and a senior.

The senior is John Starks, a 6-5 guard from Tulsa who is averaging close to 15 points a game and whose 18-foot jumper polished off Iowa State. Starks attended three jucos before showing up in Stillwater and is, says Hamilton, “probably the team’s best all-around athlete.”

The sophomore is Derrick Davis, a 5-9 guard who sat out last season under provisions of NCAA Proposition 48. He’s from Coolidge High in the Nation’s Capital, the same school that produced Kansas forward Milt Newton.

O-State’s two other starters are holdovers Sylvester Kincheon, a 6-10 center, and 6-5 forward William Woods.

“They’re as athletic as any team in the conference,” says Kansas coach Larry Brown.

Kansas has won nine straight from the Cowboys and, with OSU riding a wave of momentum and the Jayhawks desperately trying to regroup, that streak could be in jeopardy.

The Jayhawks haven’t won a road game since losing 6-10 center Marvin Branch nearly a month ago, and their only victories since then have come at the expense of Hampton, a Div. II school, and Colorado, the BIg Eight doormat.

“Kansas is fighting to come back from some adversity,” Hamilton pointed out, “and sometimes the struggle will make you stronger.”

Okie State is 3-3 in the conference with its other victory coming at home against Colorado. The ‘Pokes have dropped home games to Missouri and Kansas State and a road game against Oklahoma.

Kansas, meanwhile, is 2-4 in the Big Eight with its only wins coming against Colorado and Missouri. That Missouri game, incidentally, is the lone league contest Branch played in.

KU’s Danny Manning, currently averaging 23.5 points and 8.6 rebounds a game and leading the Big Eight in field goal percentage (60.2), could fatten those numbers on Wednesday night.

In seven previous appearances against the ‘Pokes, the 6-10 All-American has averaged 22.4 points while shooting a remarkable 74.4 percent (64 of 86).

Manning scored only eight points in Stillwater last year. However, he’s been in double figures in 21 conference games since. Manning has, in fact, played 56 games against Big Eight foes in his career and failed to reach double figures in only four of them.

kansas’ next two games are at home – against Iowa State on Saturday afternoon (3:10 p.m.) and against Nebraska a week from tonight.

Notes

Mike Masucci is out indefinitely. The 6-10 freshman is still having headaches from a mild concussion he suffered in last week’s Oklahoma game. Doctors discovered a slight fracture in the skull above Masucci’s left eye…

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