It was, I believe, the noted sage Harvey Schwartz who first uttered the deathless phrase “You can’t win by losing.” Decidedly clever fellow, that Schwartz.
Anyway, whoever Schwartz was, he certainly must have also been aware of that old saw about it being tough to win on the road.
In fact, Schwartz probably attended the University of Kentucky sometime between 1943 and 1955 when Adolph Rupp’s basketball teams won a staggering 129 straight games at home. If there’s an NCAA record comparable to Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-game streak in baseball, it’s that one. Kentucky’s 129 straight home wins are untouchable.
You probably know that Kansas owns the nation’s longest current homecourt victory string. The Jayhawks expanded their own Big Eight record to 54 with Saturday afternoon’s 78-74 victory over Missouri.
However, did you know that if the Jayhawks sweep their eight remaining home games – no certainty with the likes of Duke, Oklahoma and Iowa State remaining – they would still be six games short of reaching the No. 10 spot on the all-time list? Cincinnati is 10th on the NCAA chart with 68 straight home victories from 1972-78.
How long has it been since Kansas lost at home?
Well, it’s been so long that the KU sports information office has the date listed incorrectly. They say it was Feb. 14, 1984, but it really wasn’t a Valentine’s Day defeat. The 92-83 overtime loss to Oklahoma actually happened on Feb. 22 of ’84.
No current member of the Kansas roster suited up during the 1983-84 season. Senior forward Chris Piper was a member of that team, but the Lawrence High product was red-shirted and did not play.
After that loss to Oklahoma, incidentally, Kansas bounced back and recorded two more victories in Allen Fieldhouse and thus took a two-game winning streak into the 1984-85 campaign.
Consequently, Piper and Danny Manning, the only full-term seniors on this year’s Kansas team, are 52-0 in games played in the House That Phog Built.
Now the question is: Will Piper and Manning become the first Kansas basketball players in history to play for four years without suffering a single defeat at home?
Best answer: It’s possible, but not probable.
Many people are worried that Missouri would guillotine KU’s home streak on Saturday, not the least of whom was Larry Brown who admitted afterward he was “…so nervous it was unbelievable.”
As it turned out, however, Kansas was never in deep trouble against the defending Big Eight champions. At Washington earlier in the week, the Jayhawks had been down by 19 points and staged a stirring comeback. Against Missouri, they trailed only once in the second half, and that was by a single point.
Kansas won, in part, because Milt Newton – seemingly destined for a journeyman college career – has proven once and for all that he can replace injured starter Archie Marshall.
“For awhile I didn’t think my time would come,” confirmed Newton, a fourth-year junior. “I thought it wasn’t meant for me to play.”
In the three games Newton has filled in for Marshall, he’s averaged 14.6 points and 4.6 rebounds a game. That’s terrific, and more than any coach could ask for, really.
So Kansas has overcome that blow. Now, with increasing speculation that 6-10 Marvin Branch will be lost for the remainder of the season to academics, the Jayhawks may not be out of the proverbial woods yet.
Branch may not be an offensive whiz, but he’s the second-leading rebounder on a team that doesn’t rebound very well. Branch’s caddy this season has been Piper, but the 6-8 veteran – the squad’s oldest player – is limited to part-time duty by a nagging groin injury.
If Brown does have to replace Branch, at least Newton has convinced his teammates that there’s no need to go into a funk when a starter is lost…that there is indeed some truth to another ancient axiom, the one about strength through adversity.
