Kansas has history in Dayton

By Chuck Woodling     Mar 12, 2001

Back when folks in Dayton, Ohio, were wondering whether to build a new basketball arena, it’s easy to imagine a city father standing up and orating eloquently: “If you build it, Kansas will come.”

Today we know KU basketball teams and Dayton are like Velcro.

If the NCAA makes the quiet city on the Miami River one of its tournament sites, you can count on Kansas sticking to the bracket on the Dayton side.

Last time the NCAA made Dayton a tourney site was 1995. Kansas was there.

Three years earlier, Dayton was also an NCAA first-round site. Kansas was there.

Prior to that, Dayton hadn’t hosted an NCAA tournament since 1986. You guessed it. Kansas was there.

Four times since ’86 Dayton has been an NCAA Tournament site and each time Kansas has been assigned there.

All of the media folks me included who had speculated the Jayhawks would be sent to the hinterlands following their five-point loss to Oklahoma in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament should have known better.

If Dayton is an NCAA Tournament site, Kansas will be there. Book it. Case closed.

Not that Dayton has been disastrous to KU. The other Kansas squads that played in Wilbur and Orville Wright’s hometown compiled an overall record of 5-1. The lone defeat was that stunning 66-60 loss to Texas-El Paso in 1992.

All of the previous KU teams sent to Dayton were No. 1 seeds, however. Kansas’ fourth trip will be as a No. 4 seed a bit of a surprise when a No. 3 seemed likely but at least a No. 4 is twice as good as last year’s ignominious No. 8 in the East Regional.

If the Jayhawks win twice in Dayton no given in light of KU’s recent history of second-round failures they would advance to the Friday-Sunday Midwest Regional site in San Antonio.

That will be during the school’s spring recess, meaning all those KU students who are headed for Padre Island could stop at the Alamodome and cheer for the Jayhawks on their way back to Lawrence.

A curiosity cropped up while comparing Kansas’ last visit to Dayton with this one. In ’95, KU was a No. 1 seed with a 23-5 record. Six years later, Kansas is a No. 4 seed with a very similar 24-6 record. Why the disparity? Must be the strength of schedule factor, or perhaps the S-curve was infringing on the up side of the down scale in the RPI ratings.

To refresh your memory, back in ’95 Kansas brushed away Colgate, 82-68, then outlasted Western Kentucky, 75-70, to earn yippee they thought at the time a berth in the Midwest Regional in Kansas City.

Kemper Arena had been the carrot all along during that 1994-95 season, but the supposed advantage was short-lived when the Jayhawks were vanquished by Virginia, 67-58, in the Sweet 16.

But that was then, and this is a new century.

No way of knowing, of course, if Kansas will ascend this March to its first Final Four appearance since 1993. It’s possible, as always, but it isn’t probable.

Attrition has turned the Jayhawks into the shallowest team Roy Williams has had since his first year on Mount Oread. Kansas has six proven performers, and then a steep drop-off.

What shaped up as a thin perimeter before the season is even thinner now that Mario Kinsey dropped out to concentrate on his studies and Luke Axtell’s back went blooey.

Williams still has his three quality big men and that’s plenty unless he has to put them all on the floor at the same time like he did for a short stretch against Oklahoma on Saturday.

If Kansas does advance to the Sweet 16 and beyond, you’ll be reading and hearing the word “ironmen” a lot.

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