Journal-World File PhotoThere are 65 teams in the NCAA Men’s Division One basketball tournament bracket, and there’s something that pertains to Kansas University basketball in every number between one and 65.
Items for numbers one through 33 ran in Tuesday’s Journal-World.
Here are numbers 34 to 65, plus a bonus fact:
34: The number of years Phog Allen coached at Kansas before he won his first NCAA title, in 1952. Allen coached at KU for 39 years. Having reached age 70, he was forced to retire after the 1955-56 season because of a board of regents policy mandating departure at that age. Allen, upset he would not get to coach Wilt Chamberlain at the varsity level in 1956-57, labled the move “statutory senility.” He was succeeded by Dick Harp, a former Kansas star who had been Allen’s key assistant for eight years. This was also the 34th year of operation for storied Allen Fieldhouse. Also in 1934, KU won the Big Six title for the fourth straight season with a 16-1 season mark. Ray Ebling with a 12.8 average was the top scorer for the Jayhawks.
35: The 1997-98 Jayhawks posted a 35-4 record as Big 12 Conference champions, Big 12 Tournament champions, preseason NIT champions and national title contenders. But the Jayhawks were derailed by Rhode Island in a second-round game. The 1985-86 squad, a noted Final Four entry, also had a 35-4 record, and that win total remains the highest in KU history. Larry Brown’s talented ’85-86 team won the Big Eight title and NCAA Midwest Regional with a 4-0 record before being dumped by Duke in the national semifinals at Dallas. KU’s key men that year were Danny Manning, Ron Kellogg, Calvin Thompson, Greg Dreiling and Cedric Hunter. After the ’98 upset by Jim Harrick’s Rhode Islanders, one of KU’s greatest teams limped home with a 1-1 NCAA record, never getting close to the Final Four.
36: The 1936 season saw Big Six champion KU enter the Olympic playoffs against Utah State as a strong favorite. But Kansas lost two out of three games. While KU posted a sterling 21-2 overall record in ’36, it had to stay home from the Games even though coach Phog Allen had been the key man in getting basketball included in the Olympics. The losses to Utah State snapped a 23-game KU victory streak, still tops for the school’s program.
37: The only No. 37 jersey listed in the KU media guide–the number was worn by Eldon Nicholson from Pittsburg, a reserve on KU’s 1953 NCAA finalist team.
38: Fred Pralle (1936-38) becomes KU’s first consensus All-American and KU has an 18-2 record. But there was no NCAA tournament until ’39. The 6-3 Pralle later starred for the Phillips Oilers and in the AAU ranks and his retired jersey hangs with 20 others in Allen Fieldhouse. Many have called him “the Michael Jordan of his day.”
39: 1939–the year of basketball inventor James Naismith’s death after a career as KU coach, teacher and spiritual adviser. He was 78. He is buried here in Memorial Park cemetery and his grave is often visited by both local and non-local people. Kansas coach Roy Williams is a frequent visitor to the site during moments of a quest for inspiration and tranquility. Naismith came to KU from Springfield, Mass., for an annual salary of $1,300.
40: Kansas ties for the Big Six Conference title and then wins a league playoff involving Missouri and Oklahoma. There were only eight teams involved in the NCAA Tournament in ’40. Kansas beat Rice and Southern Cal to reach the finals against Indiana in Kansas City. Indiana then won over a lineup that included Dick Harp, Howard Engleman, Ralph Miller, John Kline and Bob Allen. The Jayhawks finished the season with a 19-6 record.
41: For his performances during the 1941 season, Howard Engleman becomes KU’s second consensus All-American. Fred Pralle was the first in 1938. KU had a 12-6 record in 1941. Engleman had started on the 1940 NCAA Final Four team as a junior, saw extensive World War II Navy duty and later while a law student posted an 8-6 record as head coach in 1947 when Phog Allen had to take time off due to a head injury. This past season, Engleman’s No. 5 jersey was retired and hung in the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse to join 20 others so honored.
42: Terry Brown’s point total against North Carolina State in a 105-94 victory as KU was en route to another Final Four appearance. Other Jayhawks with NCAA pedigrees who had 42-point games during their careers were Clyde Lovellette, Danny Manning and Walt Wesley.
43: It was in ’43 that KU’s famed Iron Five of Charlie Black, Otto Schnellbacher, Ray Evans and Armand Dixon won the Big Six title, posted a 22-6 record but unfortunately got no chance to compete for the NCAA title. World War II duty caused a wide pre-tourney dispersal of a squad that many considered quite capable of winning the national crown. Wyoming eventually claimed the college championship. KU played its final game, at home, on March 6, beating Kansas State 47-30. The next morning coach Phog Allen took six of his players to Fort Leavenworth for induction into the military. Earlier, Charlie Black had left for Army Air Corps pilot training. Soon the entire roster was decimated by wartime duty.
44: The point total of Clyde Lovellette against St. Louis U. on 3-22-52 as KU marched to the national title. Then junior All-American B.H. Born set a conference record with 44 points against Colorado on 3-2-53 as Kansas again was en route to a national title contest.
45: It was in February of 1945 that Kansas State was about to snap a 17-game losing streak against the hated Jayhawks. KU led 32-31 and the Manhattan crowd noise swelled as K-State headed for an apparent goal to win. It was so noisy the crowd in jammed Nichols Gym did not hear a referee whistle signalling traveling by a Wildcat, negating the upset attempt. Owen Peck’s free throw iced a 33-31 KU win but the crowd reacted angrily. Some KU car tires were slashed and fans and squad members were hassled. Eventually, that KU string against K-State reached 22.
46: The ’46 season saw KU with Charlie Black, Otto Schnellbacher and Ray Evans back from World War II service post a 19-2 record. The only losses were to eventual NCAA champion Oklahoma A&M, with towering Bob Kurland. One loss to A & M was in the regular season at Oklahoma City; the second was in the District 5 NCAA playoff game in Kansas City by a 49-38 margin. That ’46 game also marked the broadcasting debut of veteran radio-television man Max Falkenstien, now in his 57th year as a voice of the Jayhawks. John Douglas scored 46 points for KU against Iowa State in 1977 and Wilt Chamberlain racked up 46 against Nebraska in 1958.
47: It was during the ’47 season that coach Phog Allen suffered a head injury during a Jayhawk practice session and had to take some time off. Former star Howard Engleman, then a war veteran law student, took over for the final 14 games and KU had an 8-6 record during that span. The season record was 16-11.
48: Phog Allen returned from a medical leave of absence. He hired former star Dick Harp as his first full-time assistant. He ordered Harp to turn heaven and earth to recruit Bob Kenney of Winfield, Bill Hougland of Beloit and Bill Lienhard of Newton while he, Allen, would put special focus on Clyde Lovellette of Terre Haute, Ind. Phog told a doubting Harp to promise the three Kansans, as he would promise Lovellette, that KU was going to win a national championship and go to the Olympics with these four budding stars as the hub of the operation. It turned out that way, much to Harp’s amazement.
49: The most heralded freshman class in KU history worked out in relative obscurity during the 1948-49 season. Freshmen were not eligible then, and the KU varsity went 12-12. Rumors persisted that “Phog had lost it” and might soon have to retire. No more league titles or NCAA contention for KU, skeptics whispered. But Allen and Lovellette and Co. would have the ultimate laugh.
50: KU’s Fabulous Four Frosh of 1948-49 made their debut as sophomores in 1950. The Jayhawks tied for the Big Seven Conference championship and gained the chance to compete for the NCAA crown. One-game venture. KU was beaten in a district NCAA playoff by a Bradley team that later made the national finals and lost to City College of New York. The Bradley and CCNY achievements were tarnished badly about a year later when arrests were made involving players on their teams who were suspected of fixes and point-shaving. Also of significance was the 50-point explosion by KU’s Bud Stallworth against Missouri in February of 1972. Stallworth had started for the 1971 KU Final Four team. The year 1950 was also when Dutch Lonborg, a former four-sport star at Kansas, came back to KU as athletic director after a long career of basketball coaching, mainly at Northwestern. Lonborg and Phog Allen were key men in the founding and development of the NCAA basketball tournament.
51: KU’s hopes for the ’51 season were high, with the Fab Four on hand as juniors. Yet the final record was 16-8 and KU finished second in the conference to Kansas State. At the time, only one team per league was included in NCAA tournament play. Kansas State reached the national finals where it lost to Kentucky in Minneapolis.
52: This was the payoff year for Phog, the Jayhawks and their fans as KU won the NCAA title and placed seven players on the all-victorious U.S. Olympic team that traveled to Helsinki, Finland. Allen was the Olympic assistant coach while Peoria’s Warren Womble served as head man. The number 52 is also significant because it was the school record point total that Wilt Chamberlain scored (along with claiming 31 rebounds) in his KU debut against Northwestern here in December of 1956. KU then marched to the ’57 NCAA finals but fell to North Carolina in triple overtime.
53: With six of its seven Olympic stars unavailable, Kansas was regarded as a mere middle-of-the road contender for the Big Seven title, let alone another major NCAA run. With a starting lineup that included only one man, B.H. Born, taller than 6-2, KU battled to the NCAA title game and lost by a single point to Indiana. The final KU record was 19-6, same as it had been when Kansas fell to Indiana in the 1940 title game. Allen’s colorful, swashbucking Bandy-Legged Gamecock lineup that year included Born, 6-2 Hal Patterson, 6-1 Gil Reich, 6-0 Allen Kelley and 5-11 Dean Kelley.
54: With players like B.H. Born, Allen Kelley, Dallas Dobbs and Harold Patterson, KU was a favorite to win the Big Seven title and make another bid for NCAA honors. However, KU was tied by Colorado for the league crown, Colorado lucked out on a drawing from a hat and KU sat home since only one team per league could make the NCAA tourney. Colorado fell to Bradley in CU’s only tourney appearance that year.
55: The number of victories as Kansas coach by the game’s inventor, James Naismith. His 55-60 mark remains the only losing record in KU basketball history. He was succeeded by Phog Allen in 1907 and often told Phog, “Forrest, you don’t coach basketball, you just play it.” Allen, of course, became famous as The Father of Basketball Coaching, so KU counts the game’s inventor and the father of coaches among its court icons. Red Letter Day: On March 1, 1955, Allen Fieldhouse was opened and dedicated to honor a legend who eventually gave KU 39 years of coaching and civic leadership contributions. KU also posted a 55-game home win streak from 3-3-84 to 1-30-88 that stands as a Big Eight record. It was snapped by Kansas State.
56: The 1955-56 season was Phog Allen’s last at Kansas, and Wilt Chamberlain’s freshman year. Allen was forced to retire at age 70 under an existing board of regents policy and could only help coach the celebrated Chamberlain as a freshman. Phog was succeeded by former star and assistant Dick Harp.
57: Wilt Chamberlain burst upon the basketball scene as a sophomore and sparked KU to the national title game with North Carolina. The 1956-57 season was also the first for head coach Dick Harp. KU wound up with a 24-3 record, the only losses being to Iowa State, Oklahoma State and North Carolina in that triple-overtime heartbreaker in Kansas City.
58: It was 1957-58 that was the second and final season at Kansas for Chamberlain, who left after his junior year to join the Harlem Globetrotters for an $80,000 package. The suspicious Wilt, fearing resentment because he left early, was long in returning to the bosom of Kansas. He did come back, with great fanfare here, at age 62 to see his No. 13 jersey retired and he called it “the greatest experience of my life.” He died about a year later due to a heart condition. Many Kansas and professional NBA records still have Chamberlain’s name on them, including a 100-point pro game and a full NBA season when he averaged over 50 points and 25 rebounds per game. But even with Wilt, Kansas finished second to Kansas State in the league in 1958, then the Wildcats reached the Final Four.
59: The ’59 season was originally scheduled to be Wilt’s finale at Kansas, when he’d help lead KU to more NCAA glory. But he left a year early and even though freshman teammates such as Ron Loneski, Bob Billings, Lynn Kindred and Monte Johnson returned, and hall-of-famer Bill Bridges was a key sophomore, KU was unable to do better than 11-14. The ’57 loss to Carolina and the premature departure of Chamberlain triggered pressure that coach Dick Harp never could shake despite his winning record before he left after the 1964 season.
60: Kansas started its league season with a diappointing 2-3 record, then rallied to tie Kansas State for the Big Eight title. The Jayhawks featuring Bill Bridges and Wayne Hightower, beat Kansas State to make the NCAA Regional in Manhattan. KU beat Texas the first game but was whipped by Oscar Robertson and Cincinnati in the regional title match.
61: It was ’61, the year of an anticipated Kansas NCAA presence that wasn’t–because of sanctions against KU because of apparent misdeeds in aiding Wilt Chamberlain with his auto activities. The denial of a shot at the NCAA meet had a debilitating effect on the Jayhawk psyche despite the all-league presence of Bill Bridges and Wayne Hightower. KU had a 17-8 mark but only tied for second in the conference. League champion Kansas State got the conference’s single tourney berth at a time when entrance was far more restrictive that today’s 65-team throng.
62: The glitzy home court winning streak for Kansas from 2-26-93 to 12-9-98. Iowa posted an 85-81 non-league stunner to break the string. The year 1962 was also when former Jayhawk Wilt Chamberlain set a monumental record by scoring 100 points in an NBA game.
63: The opposing point total for KU’s 80-63 NCAA title victory over St. John’s in Seattle. That 63 was also the total that touted Stanford had to settle for a year ago when Kansas uncorked an 86-63 romp past the favored in Cardinal in NCAA play in St. Louis. Perhaps the most amazing aspect of that game was the way KU’s Kirk Hinrich bounced back from a terrible ankle sprain in the preceding game against Holy Cross and wound up with 15 inspirational points, eight assists, five rebounds and outstanding overall play. Jeff Boschee had 19 points for the Jayhawks while Nick Collison scored 17 and Drew Gooden had 15.
64: The ’64 season is Dick Harp’s eighth and last as Kansas head coach. Harp leaves after a 13-12 final year and a career mark of 121-82. He is succeeded by asssistant Ted Owens, who then serves in the post for 19 years and takes KU to two Final Four tourneys.
65: The number of Kansas victories in NCAA tournament play from 1940 up to the current tournament. KU enters 2003 NCAA tourney action with a 65-31 record. Then when NCAA-bound Kansas beat North Carolina State on Jan. 5, 1991, KU’s Terry Brown scored 42 points and teammate Alonzo Jamison got 23. Their 65-point combination broke the record for most points by a Jayhawk duo in a single game.
Bonus 66: Many still consider Ted Owens’ 1966 team one of the best KU has ever had. Its season ended in the NCAA Regional at Lubbock when a Jo Jo White shot that would have won the game was nullified by a controversial call that said White stepped on the sideline before launching his long bomb. Evidence is that the call was wrong. KU was denied victory over a Texas Western team that eventually defeated Kentucky for the national title. Coach Ted Owens has often said that the 1966 KU squad was one of the very best he ever coached or had ever seen.
The 2003 NCAA basketball tournament starts out with 65 entries and one can find a corresponding Kansas University personality or event relating to every niche from 1 to 65.
KU has been that influential in the annual event that has evolved into March Madness.
For example, KU enters ’03 tourney play with 65 victories since its first appearance in 1940. Kansas has made 31 tournament appearances, and this year’s will be No. 32. How is KU involved with the number 15, No. 34 or No. 39?
Bill Mayer, Journal-World contributing editor has compiled a list of the 65 numbers and how they relate to KU basketball and its long impact on NCAA tournament activity.
1: No. 1 NCAA finishes — two — for the Kansas Jayhawks, 1952 (coach Phog Allen) and 1988 (coach Larry Brown). Then there are the unofficial national titles voted to Allen’s Kansas teams in 1922 and 1923 by the prestigious Helms (Bakery) Foundation. KU’s 1922 record was 16-2, the 1923 record was 17-1, the 1952 record was 28-3 and the 1988 record was 27-11.
Journal-World File Photos2: No. 2 NCAA finishes for Kansas, four in all — 1940, 1953, 1957 and 1991, falling to Indiana the first two times, North Carolina the third and Duke the fourth. KU had two one-point heartbreakers, 69-68 against Indiana in 1953 and 54-53 in triple overtime in 1957.
3: No. 3 NCAA finishes for Kansas, three in all — and all since 1986, always with an asterisk — tied with Louisiana State in 1986, tied with Kentucky in 1993 and tied with Oklahoma in 2002. As of 1982, the NCAA eliminated a third-place game in the Final Four and began to list the two first-round losers as co-inhabitants of third place.
4: The father-son combinations who have played at KU through the years — Phog Allen (1905-07) and sons Mitt (1934-36) and Bob (1939-41); Gene Elstun (1955-57) and son Doug (1991); Monte Johnson (1957-59) and son Jeff (1957-59); and Fred Bosilevac (1937) and son Fred Jr. (1970-72). Phog Allen, Bob Allen, Monte Johnson and Jeff Johnson, Gene and Don Elstun and Fred Bosilevac Jr. all were with NCAA Final Four squads.
5: Number of years Larry Brown was head coach at Kansas in winning his first NCAA championship, in 1988. Brown left KU with a 135-44 record after the ’88 triumph to take over the San Antonio Spurs professional franchise. Then Phog Allen came up with his famed Pony Express Five, a smallish but scrappy starting unit that reached the 1940 NCAA title game. Phog’s starting five in 1940 included Ralph Miller, Howard Engleman, Co-Capt. Dick Harp, Bob Allen and John Kline, with Co-Capt. Don Ebling and Bruce Voran as the key substitutes.
6: As of the start of the 2003 tournament grind, former Kansas player, assistant coach and head coach Dick Harp remains one of only six men to play and head coach or assistant-coach teams in the NCAA Final Four. The other five are Dean Smith of Kansas-North Carolina, Bob Knight of Ohio State-Indiana, Bones McKinney of North Carolina-Wake Forest, Vic Bubas of North Carolina State-Duke and Billy Donovan of Providence-Florida. KU in 1997 saw all six of its senior players earn get their diplomas at spring commencement — Jerod Haase, Scot Pollard, Jacque Vaughn, B.J. Williams, Joel Branstrom and Steve Ransom.
7: It was the Big Seven Conference that Kansas conquered in 1952 to reach the NCAA tournament where it eventually won the national title. KU has been in the Missouri Valley Conference (1908-28), the Big Six (1929-47), the Big Seven (1948-58), the Big Eight (1959-96) and the Big 12 (from 1997 to the present).
8: The number of college teams involved in the 1940 NCAA playoffs from which Kansas emerged as a national title contender, losing to Indiana. In December of 1970, Kansas held Jerry Tarkanian’s Long Beach State team, an eventual NCAA contender, to a 32-8 halftime lead here. A bomb scare delayed play and officials stalled while a search was conducted in Allen Fieldhouse. No bomb. Kansas won the game 69-52, with Bud Stallworth scoring 21 points. That 1970-71 KU team wound up in the Final Four. Long Beach State lost to UCLA in the ’71 NCAA West Regional.
9: Entering the 2002-2003 season, there were only nine NCAA-affiliated coaches with more career victories than Kansas’s Phog Allen, who wound up with a 746-246 record. The first nine are topped by two Allen proteges — Dean Smith with 879 victories and Adolph Rupp with 876. Then from third to ninth are Clarence Gaines, Jim Phelan, Jerry Johnson, Bob Knight, Lefty Dreisell, Henry Iba and Ed Diddle. Further, including Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich this season, Kansas has had a total of nine All-Big 12 first-team choices since the league began operation — Raef LaFrentz twice, Paul Pierce once, Collison and Drew Gooden twice each and Hinrich twice. Then for a bonus, Bob Kenney of the 1952 NCAA and Olympic championship team has been one of the rare wearers of the number 9.
10: The number of seasons Roy Williams spent as an assistant to Kansas graduate Dean Smith at North Carolina before becoming the KU head coach for the 1988-89 season. Williams succeeded Larry Brown, another North Carolina graduate and Smith disciple. Williams aide Joe Holliday has been here 10 years.
11: Total of Kansas Final Four appearances, a figure that could rise to 12 with KU entering the battle for the ’03 national crown. Also, the 11 three-pointers by Terry Brown set a KU record on Jan. 5, 1991, as the Jayhawks battled their way toward the national title game against Duke.
12: The point totals of both Bob Kenney and Bill Lienhard in the NCAA title victory over St. John’s in Seattle in 1952. Kenney, Lienhard, Clyde Lovellette, Bill Hougland, Charlie Hoag and John Keller from that team eventually starred with the U.S. OIympic championship team, with KU’s Phog Allen as the key assistant.
13: There were 13 original rules of basketball written by game founder James Naismith, later a Kansas coach and faculty member. The game’s originator compiled the “rules” in 1891 at Springfield, Mass. Naismith joined the KU faculty in 1898 for a salary of $1,300 and later became director of physical education and the school’s first official basketball coach. His coaching record was 55-60, the only losing mark in KU’s storied court history. Also, Kansas up to this season has made 13 consecutive appearances in NCAA Tournament play. Wilt Chamberlain wore No. 13 on his KU jersey.
14: The number of former Jayhawks currently enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame. They are James Naismith, Dr. F.C. “Phog” Allen, E.C. Quigley, John Bunn, Adolph Rupp, Paul Endacott, Arthur “Dutch” Lonborg, William C. Johnson, John McLendon, Wilt Chamberlain, Dean Smith, Ralph Miller, Clyde Lovellette and Larry Brown. Further, there have been 14 undefeated KU seasons in Allen Fieldhouse since it opened March 1, 1955.
15: Roy Williams’ tenure at Kansas University. As KU enters NCAA play in 2003, Williams is in his 15th season as a Jayhawk.
16: KU registered an unprecedented 16-0 record in the Big 12 regular-season play en route to the NCAA Final Four in 2002. Further, the 1952 NCAA tournament that Kansas won opened with 16 entries, with most of them league champions because conferences could have only one entry before reaching today’s tournament roster of 65 teams. Then consider that legendary Allen Fieldhouse’s capacity is listed at 16,300.
17: The lead figure of the 17,000 capacity that KU coach Phog Allen believed Allen Fieldhouse enjoyed when it was opened late in the 1955 season. The stage thus was set for the debut of Wilt Chamberlain as a varsity superstar as a 1955-56 freshman and 1956-57 sophomore. Chances are the fieldhouse was jammed with 17,000-plus on March 1, 1955, the night it was dedicated to honor the Jayhawk coaching icon. Since then, the capacity has been re-set at 16,300. Oddly, there were at least three times in the Chamberlain sophomore season of ’56-57 that the fieldhouse was not sold out. Several more such occasions in 1958, Wilt’s junior season.
18: The standing 18-assist record that KU guard Tom Kivisto registered against Nebraska in 1973. Kivisto captained the 1974 NCAA Final Four team coached by Ted Owens. Mark Randall scored 18 points and got 10 rebounds as KU battled Duke in the 1991 NCAA title game loss. Terry Brown added 16 points and Adonis Jordan 11 after KU had whipped such luminaries as Arkansas, Indiana and North Carolina to reach the showdown.
19: Ted Owens had a 19-year coaching tenure at KU (1964-83) with a record of 348-182. Phog Allen’s 590-219 remains tops. Owens’ Jayhawk teams won six Big Eight titles, made it into NCAA Tournament play seven times and reached the Final Four in 1971 and 1974. Owens also coached an NIT team, was voted Big Eight coach of the year five times and in 1978 was chosen national coach of the year by Basketball Weekly. Kansas posted identical 19-6 records in reaching the NCAA finals in 1940 and 1953.
20: It was in 1920 that Phog Allen returned to Lawrence as the KU coach after a term at Warrensburg, Mo. Allen took over for Karl Schlademan after one game in the ’20 season and eventually served 39 years as King Hawk on the Kaw. He had also coached at Haskell Institute and Baker University as well as handling a number of AAU-level teams, playing and starring for several of them. Wilt Chamberlain still holds the school record for the most field goals in a game, 20, on Dec. 3, 1956, in his college debut against Northwestern.
21: Number of Kansas Sweet 16 appearances in NCAA tourney play leading up to the 2003 title quest. Then there are 21 retired honor jerseys hanging in Allen Fieldhouse — 18 for men and three for women — Angela Aycock, Tamecka Dixon and Lynette Woodard.
22: The age at which Phog Allen replaced basketball inventor James Naismith in 1908 as head coach at KU. Kansas won its first “national” title in 1922 when the influential Helms Foundation, a sports-oriented bakery conglomerate, voted Phog Allen’s 16-2 Jayhawks the honor. In the days before wire service, coaching rundowns and television entities, many recognized the Helms honor as the ultimate. The second longest winning streak in KU history was 22, from 11-26-96 to 2-4-97 when Missouri won a 96-94 overtime victory in Columbia. There was also a 22-game win string from 2-10-08 until 2-10-09.
23: A second “national” title was voted to Kansas University in ’23 when the Jayhawks romped to a 16-0 record in the prestigious Missouri Valley and wound up 17-1, losing only the the non-college Kansas City Athletic Club team. That KU team featured Charlie Black the First, Tus Ackerman and Paul Endacott and had a substitute from Halstead, Adolph Rupp, who wound up as a Kentucky coaching icon. At one time Rupp had won more games than any other coach in collegiate history. His total was later surpassed by another KU alumnus, Dean Smith of North Carolina. Then there was KU’s longest winning streak, 23, from 3-6-1935 until 3-26-36 when Kansas lost to Utah State in the Olympic playoffs. KU’s Phog Allen had been instrumental in getting basketball included in Olympic competition, then was denied the chance to take a team and coach it in Berlin in 1936. Wilt Chamberlain had 23 points and 14 rebounds in KU’s 54-53 triple-overtime loss to North Carolina in the 1957 NCAA title game.
24: Kansas beat unofficial defending college champion Pittsburgh 24-23 in late 1931 when Phog Allen for the first time took a Jayhawk group to “the East.” KU had a three-game series with the highly regarded Panthers and came home with a 2-1 record. The KU season record for 1931-32 was 13-5 including a Big Six title.
25: The number Danny Manning wore at Kansas. He led KU to a second official national title and still holds the KU career scoring record of 2,951 points. Other Jayhawks of distinction who wore No. 25 were Nolen Ellison, Lew Johnson and Del Lewis, with the latter two also seeing NCAA tourney action at KU.
26: The point total of KU’s B.H. Born in the NCAA title loss to Indiana in 1953, along with 17 rebounds and 13 blocks. Born was the first player ever voted NCAA Tournament most valuable player while performing with a non-winning team. While blocks were not officially tabulated in 1953, Born probably became the first triple-double player in KU history with his ’53 effort.
27: The number of seconds coaching icon Dean Smith played in the KU’s ’52 NCAA title game against St. John’s. For a long time, the “official” box score did not list Smith. Knowing he had played, Smith pored over game films and determined he had seen 27 seconds of duty. Friends lobbied to get the NCAA to correct the error involving the North Carolina coaching legend; some 10 years ago that was accomplished. “That may not seem important to some people but I was so proud to be a part of that team that I wanted it recorded I played in a championship game. I was greatly relieved when it got corrected. There’s a lot more to this game than fame or money; there’s the tremendous pride you have in being with the kinds of people I associated with at KU. No amount of money can provide that.” The ’91 Kansas team posted a 27-8 record in reaching the NCAA finals against Duke. The KU Final Four team of 1971 had a 27-3 mark, losing to UCLA and Western Kentucky.
28: Well, 28.5, anyway. That’s the scoring average KU’s Clyde Lovellette posted in 1952 in leading KU to conference and national titles. It was the first (and only) time the regular-season scoring champion led his team to the NCAA title.
29: KU’s 1993 Big Eight champions and NCAA Midwest Regional champions posted a 29-7 record. They reached the Final Four, falling to North Carolina in the national semifinals. KU’s top scorers were Rex Walters, Adonis Jordan, Eric Pauley, Richard Scott and Steve Woodberry.
30: Points scored by KU’s Paul Pierce in the 1997 post-season tournament title game against Missouri.
31: Number of Jayhawk NCAA tournament appearances up to this season. Then, it was the year ’31 when Kansas native Adolph Rupp from KU made his coaching debut at Kentucky University. The Halstead, Kan., product won more games at UK than anyone in history until ’53 KU graduate Dean Smith topped it at North Carolina.
32: The 1931-32 season saw Phog Allen win his 10th conference title in 15 years of coaching at KU. The Jayhawks won or shared seven of the eight league titles from 1931 to 1938 and finished second in 1935. Yet there was no NCAA tournament until 1939, thus the accomplished Jayhawks of the Golden Thirties never could showcase their wares on a national basis. Meanwhile, Allen was working to get basketball included on the Olympic program before 1936 and attended the ’32 Olympics in Los Angeles to lobby for that project.
33: The number of points Clyde Lovellette scored in the 1952 NCAA title game, an 80-63 victory over St. John’s coached by Frank McGuire. And the 2002 Kansas team posted 33 victories in reaching the Final Four after winning the Big 12 title with an unprecedented 16-0 mark.
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