Piece of cake, you think. Iowa State basketeer Paul Shirley has tied the score against Missouri last week with a free throw. He has another shot to put his club ahead with only a few seconds to go in regulation play. ISU can clinch it right there.
You know if Shirley, the dependable senior academic wonder from nearby Meriden, were at the line against Kansas he’d make it. He excels in dealing misery to the Jayhawks. But Shirley blows the second shot, the game runs four overtimes and Missouri wins.
You’re dying for Mizzou to suffer that first Big 12 loss. You’re sure Kansas State won’t be able to dole it out, even at Manhattan, in a few days. So Iowa State doesn’t and K-State does. Love ya, Cats!
But even if Kansas is in good shape right now, it faces two games with Iowa State and two with Missouri. Both are fully capable of whipping an erratic KU team in a wild up-and-down league season. There are a lot of traps to avoid before the Jayhawks can sniff a league title.
Again, watch it. Shirley didn’t make that clutch shot against Mizzou but if there is any way for him to haunt KU, again, he’ll do it at Ames Feb. 5 and in Lawrence Feb. 17. The guy seems enchanted against Kansas.
As for Missouri, it will keep struggling while coach Quin Snyder allows Clarence Gilbert and Kareem Rush to keep taking senseless shots while able inside guys wither on the vine. Snyder needs to take some guys to the woodshed as Roy Williams did after that childish Jeff Boschee technical against Nebraska.
Gilbert and Rush can shoot the Tigers to glory but they also can bomb them into oblivion. They almost did it with their undisciplined clangers against Iowa State, then really fell on their swords at Kansas State.
Everyone gets up for Kansas, and by the time KU encounters MU and ISU, they will be more than able to derail the Jayhawks. There’s absolutely no hiding place in the Big 12.
l Four-overtime games? There’ll never be one to top KU’s 90-88 squeaker past K-State on Dec. 29, 1962, in the Big Eight holiday tournament in Kansas City.
I’m jaded by the fact KU won, and might have a different spin if KSU had prevailed. But it was a great spectacle no matter who won.
That game produced one of the very finest individual efforts I’ve ever seen on a college court, by guard Nolen Ellison. Nolen, a Wyandotte High product, played all 60 minutes, scored 32 points 10 buckets and 12 of 14 free throws and always came up with the shot or charity when it was live or die for Kansas.
K-State led most of the way and seemed to have it won several times. KU always found a way to respond. Ellison canned a 20-foot shot (no three-point line then) with two seconds left to force a third overtime; his two free throws with three seconds left forced the fourth extra period. No Jayhawk has ever given a more magnificent performance.
But two Kansas benchwarmers also figured prominently. Jay Roberts, a 6-4 football end, popped in a 12-foot jumper with three seconds left to give KU the 90-88 victory. Roberts entered the game with a 1.6-point average but got three buckets that night.
Then sub center John Matt registered 10 unexpected points after starter George Unseld fouled out with 7:37 to go in regulation with a career high of 26 points, 21 in the first half. Matt’s two free throws and a layup gave KU an 86-82 lead in the fourth overtime, the first time KU had led since regulation.
State bounced back and it took Roberts’ shot after a deft feed from (who else?) Ellison to wrap it up.
The victory was KU’s fifth straight and produced the Jayhawks’ fifth tournament title while sidetracking K-State’s bid for an unprecedented third straight KC crown. Willie Murrell led Kansas State with 28 points and Gary Marriott scored 24. The eight KU players in that classic were Ellison, Unseld, Matt and Roberts along with Kerry Bolton, Jim Dumas, Harry Gibson and Dave Schichtle.
The muscled, superbly conditioned Ellison was jelly after that draining ordeal, several times on the verge of collapse. He’s had a fine career in education, has done much for KU through the years and is now retired in Kansas City, I hear. Whatta Jayhawk ambassador, then and now.
l Talk about all-name basketball teams. Nebraska’s Cookie Belcher and Kimani Ffriend have drawn attention, along with Missouri’s Tujadeen Soyoye, Oklahoma’s Jozsef Szendrei and a few others you might name.
Right now, my list-leader is Ruben Boumtje Boumtje, the senior starting center for surprising Georgetown. His last name is Boumtje Boumtje. It’s pronounced Boom-chee Boom-chee, kinda like that music they used to play for the bump-and-grind strippers at Kansas City’s old Folly Burlesque (we were there to study the comedy routines ha!).
A name like that drives announcers nuts. They have to say it in full or run the risk of having some civil rights outfit nail them to the cross for shortening it to something like Boom Boom.
Ruben, to make a long name short, is not just an alphabetical oddity. He’s a 7-0, 255-pound native of Younde, Cameroon, who’s been averaging about 11 points and 7 rebounds for the Hoyas.
Nicknames? My favorites still are basketeer Bill Mlkvy of Temple, “The Owl Without a Vowel”, and “Ding Dong Danny From Dumas”, TCU football tailback Danny Ray McKown from Dumas, Texas.
