@nuleafjhawk
Interesting point. Thanks. I wondered the same thing awhile back. I went back and looked at some of the rosters of the Top5 or TopTen teams during certain seasons of the 1960s and 1970s. Didn't run the numbers, just anecdotal observation.
Lots of length. By the 70s mmaybe more length than the era of the OAD. Often not much strength. Often not terribly athletic. But based on what I can recall, as good or better fundamentally in many ways. Recall slender 6-11 Walt Wesley who went on to an extended journeyman career in the NBA. There were lots like him between 6-8 and 6-11. During the Owens years, Owens almost always started two guys over 6-8, and rotated one or two more. And from what I recall standing beside these guys at the Big Eight Christmas tournament on the concourse, or meeting them in classes later in the early 1970s their listed heights were actual, not Self inches. And KU was hardly alone. All the Top Ten, and most of the Top teams started such lineups. First UCLA late in the ring run, then the ACC teams seemed to be the first to combine length, athleticism and muscle. And of course Indiana's 76 ring team started a 6-7 2 guard--Bobby Wilkerson.
But by 1963, when Wooden started 6-5 Freddie Slaughter (a great leaper probably even today), the TopTen, certainly the Top Five teams almost entirely had long big men 6-8 to 6-10 tall, and by 1968 through the 70s guys were really getting long, and, as I said, a few were beginning to combine athleticism, muscle and length not just in the superstar players, but throughout their squads.
KU was of course a leader in starting long bigs with Born, Lovellette, and Wilt. But people forget that Harps early teams, which lacked enough depth and top perimeter players, started 6-9 Wayne Hightower at 4, and he had athleticism the equal of today's players, and KU was not a top team those years. Walt Wesley was 6-11 and usually played with someone 6-7 to 6-9. And so on into the 6-9 6-10 run of Owens tandems (Suttle, Von Moore, Knight, Brown, etc.). KU was long, but many teams were nearly as long and ACC, Pac 8 and Kentucky and Indiana were thought much more athletic according to media of the time.
But what I found was that Houston, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, usually 2-3 Big Ten teams, UCLA, USC, Oregon State had serious length. I don't recall what the Southwest Conference had for length in those days, probably not much because they did not take hoops seriously then. But the top 2 and sometimes top 3 teams in the ACC, Big Ten, Big 8 and Pac 8 had length.
So: while you are right that the long teams of these eras got to play a lot of short teams, once the small format NCAA tournament started, about all they saw were very long teams, EXCEPT for UCLA's dwarf, 32-0, high post ring team.
And people forget that the Wicks/Rowe/Patterson ring team later in his run, while gifted and athletic, was not all that tall for the time. Wicks was 6-8, Rowe only 6-6, and Patterson only 6-9. But they were in my opinion the greatest (and maybe the last) high post ring team of all time, even though Wooden's '63 runts were the more memorable for their short size.
The five teams I would have studied and borrowed from most to prepare for this season with the talent the team had was Wooden's two high post teams mentioned above, Self's 2000 Tulsa team, Maury John's NCAA runner up Drake team with Willie McCarter, and Jack Hartman's short SIU team with Walt Frazier.
Only Self's Tulsa team was from the modern era.
But basic principles endure across eras.
I would not have copied any one team completely, but each team has pieces that could be fitted into the mosaic of a short champion.
KU's shortness inside alone has never been the problem with this team.
The problem with this team is that because it is short inside, the basic pieces of a champion it is missing inside and outside make the shortness hard to compensate for.
