Back in the day OU would come to town and Jayhawk Nation would sharpen up their gameday faces because they knew it'd be a war in AFH. My limited understanding of the hatred started several seasons before I arrived in Lawrence. OU and KU went to OT and won in OT clinching the league title. They called TO with a few seconds left and celebrated in the middle of the court.
Of course overseeing this bush league display was their incorrigible coach Billy Tubbs. A hatred developed and I picked up on it when I came in the fall of 1985. They were great games between the two talented teams. But every time they took the floor those years they came out with a combination of arrogance, hutzpah, and extreme confidence. The fact we came out triumphant 5 of 6 times those first two years I was around was a testament to the ability we had.
Of course in 87-88 OU had the upper hand. Two 8 point losses to them actually felt relatively satisfying because OU was so good. And arrogance oozed from every player on that team. So when we see them in KC on April 4th, I wasn't too hopeful. And then Billy lost his mind.
In one of the all time great coaching blunders in a NCAA game he forgot about his bench. Of course they loved to get out and run. They scored over 100 19 times! Over 150 twice! You're going to gas a bunch of guys Billy scoring like that and well, that April day, they were on their way to another 100 point game, but so were we! Danny forced the pace for us in the 1st half and Billy was shocked, Billy Packer that is, who said we can't keep up with them.
2nd half, we slowed it down, OU used their bench sparingly, 3 guys played all 40 minutes. All the while Larry Brown is bringing in football players and a smattering of odd parts and OU just wore out.
After the game I remember distinctly hearing Tubbs saying OU was the better team. I also remember hearing Stacy King saying when he got drafted by MJ's Bulls that he was glad because he'll be able to get lots of endorsements in a big city like Chicago. Arrogance even in defeat.
But in my mind OU has changed. I've always like Lon Kruger. He wins regularly wherever he winds up. He's soft spoken. His teams play well, players are exciting to watch and they regularly give us a tough match.
Today was a typical matchup. We were more talented, but they have some decent players. It was the kind of game you just wonder what might happen if Garrett doesn't have an out of the blue offensive performance. Lon seemed at a loss how to respond to the onslaught. Little he could do really. They really didn't have the talent to match up with us even though they have certifiable talent.
I think todays game shows the potential of our team. This just feels like one of those seasons where the sky is the limit. These are fun times in Jayhawk Nation.
Seriously? Where was I?
Does ESPN know that AFH is only an hour from KCI so it really could do a gameday in Lawrence? I don't remember the last time it was there.
If you get a chance check out the weird Nebraska Uni's on BIGNetwork right now. Really strange.
Ya'll enjoying the best young announcer in sports? Homewood Flossmoor HS, the home of Julian Wright and White Sox play by play guy Jason Benetti. The first, and to my knowledge only, announcer in sports with cerebral palsy.
@nuleafjhawk @BeddieKU23 Beddies recap is a bit more truthful and a lot more concise
@nuleafjhawk Holy Crap, you gone and done it now. You missed an instant classic, a game so awesome ESPN regrets putting it on ESPN- (not ESPN+). You missed the greatest game in Big12/8 history. Remember Darrel Dawkins shattering backboards with dunks? You missed Doke shattering two basketballs with blocks. They had to delay the game after the second one because Bubba the manager had to run down the street to Dicks to buy another ball, (he was 1.83$ short but told the manager Huggy would stop by later and make up the difference). You missed the mountaineer dude on the sideline who shoots the gun at the end of the half screw up and accidentally shoot the cheerleader missing her front tooth. You missed Doke missing Free throws. You missed Marcus Garrett stealing the jump ball. You missed refs missing myriad muggings on the court. One missed call was so bad, security came out and arrested the West Virginia player for mugging Ochai. Then he arrested all three refs too. Student managers from both teams suited up as refs to call the last 39:03 of the game and actually earned high marks from both coaches, the first time in league history both coaches had praised the refs.
A few details are slightly embellished for effect. In reality, until the 13 minute mark of the 2nd half, when we were down by 10 or 11 you didn't miss too much. The comeback was stirring at that point. For your sake I hope that they forgot to blur out the unmentionables on naked and afraid.
@BeddieKU23 That's amazing. I do notice we've spent less time this year complaining about leaving shooters wide open. Interesting that WVU is #2. I don't understand their whole rankings when they have Baylor as the #5 team in the country.
Diallo started alongside Oubre tonight. Both in double figures.
@kjayhawks Baylor has a long and glorious history of paving our way towards another Big12 championship and I fully expect the same this year.
@FarmerJayhawk That's like the upper deck at the awful stadium of my favorite White Sox. The upper deck starts above where the roof was in the old park. You can see Europe from the top row.
@FarmerJayhawk Were you there for the game with Duke the other night? I assume you've been in the Dean Dome. Do you like it?
@kjayhawks So it wasn't a put back by Perry? I thought I remembered it that way. That team of ours was pretty soft anyways as evidenced by Stanford walloping us in the dance.
@dylans Hilarious! Target is a Minnesota based company too.
@kjayhawks Was 2015 the year the dude picked up his dribble at the 3 point line and walked all the way to the basket for the winning points and then Perry blew a simple, albeit under duress of time, putback at the buzzer?
Factoids. We made 20 shots, they made 19. They took 15 more shots. Actually shot at a decent rate, 45%. WVU had nine guys miss at least 3 shots. Used 11 overall. We used 8, the 3 bench guys missed 4 shots all night. Their bench was 5-23. Their starters actually were a bit better.
I enjoyed chatting during the game once again.
I didn't enjoy being a minute or so behind most of you because of a little glitchy game feed.
I did enjoy watching a 28-8 run to close things out. That was vintage KU basketball.
And isn't defense a beautiful thing to watch? We had 13 steals. They were things of majestic wonder! Partly because the whistles I was expecting on most of them didn't come.
Isaiah Moss, kudos to you, which is kind of hard to say for me as a Badger too, but I'm glad you changed an I for a J with your Hawk.
Doke, your perseverance through adversity has won us some games this year. When the bad fight left us shorthanded and you got in foul trouble, and managed not to foul out, well that was big, and to see you finished with 3 fouls tonight after picking up two in about the 1st four minutes? Awesome.
Dotson. Game ball for not turning it over in that whithering pressure. Clutch FT's save the day.
Ochai, some great moments too. Keep improving, we're going to need you.
Garrett, tonights MVP! 9 points, 5 steals, 4 assts, 7 boards, a quadruple single. That's filling the stat sheet even if it's offset by 6 TO's and 4 fouls. You'll probably never be enshrined in the rafters because it's offensive numbers that makes that happen, but I don't think we win tonight without your all american defensive game. It's really too bad they don't have all defense teams for NCAA like the NBA does.
Enaruna, you made a great pass to that hillbilly in the first row.
Big Dave, I think you learned a lesson tonight. If you don't have it going, you're not going to play much.
Braun, you're a freshman and WVU is really tough on freshmen. You've been invaluable to this team and I'm still miffed that DeSousa stole the limelight from your big night in Lawrence.
Coach Self, on the road to 800 wins. Let's get this Natty. It might be your best chance for a while because there's that big ugly cloud which I shouldn't even bring up, but it's there. This feels like THE YEAR to make up for lost time and to soothe the hurt that is likely coming soon. This is the team that can do this.
@BShark Seriously? 8 points? I guess you're right. I think it was 41-30. So a 28-8 run to close it out.
@Crimsonorblue22 I don't know if you remember my old mantra, but I don't get nervous until the last minute of the game.
@FarmerJayhawk Basically when you said this game was over at the 13 minute mark everyone thought you were calling it for WVU. But I knew you had the utmost confidence that the team just needed a little adversity to wake them up.
They stopped booing DDot
Really surprised they haven't tried fouling Doke
I'm so far behind you guys because my feed is glitchy. I never know which plays you're talking about.
Garrett's defense has fueled this run
Somedays I miss Roys high flying run n gun boys.... a lot. They may not have won anymore but it sure was fun watching them try.
Moss has 1 job......
They debate whether Doke got fouled when he gets mugged, and then he plays D like WVU has been doing all night and they call that weak crap.
I may have figured out why they're booing DDOt. They hand out flyers to fans and it identifies Dotson as the Bum of the Game. So really no reason to boo him.
@BShark I'll play Jaybates role and give you a PHOF!
Why bother calling fouls on them? Otherwise we'd be winning by a handful.
With a "Thrill Score" of 83.6, KU-WVU tonight is projected to be the second-most exciting college basketball game of the season, according to KenPom's FanMatch numbers. Too bad most of the nation will miss it. From Jesse Newell. My comment: Most of the nation hasn't missed much. Maybe the 2nd half will heat up.
Wow, we've got another game on ESPN+?
McCabe is evidence that Greg Gard can't recruit Wisconsin kids.
Tristan's FT froze in mid flight giving me time to pray it would go in.
@Woodrow He's a freshman.
That 3 seconds call on Doke was weak, even on replay.
As my feed cuts out and I miss some game time, I need to know how to email Jeff Long. Anyone know?
WVU 1 foul. Of course they've committed more than that.
Dang, pick up some loose balls please
@BeddieKU23 I know, it just seems like he always misses.
I can't remember Dotson making a 3 this year.
It's always refreshing to get redneck commercials
Embiid and Morris got into a little shoving match tonight. Video will show up next to box. https://www.espn.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=401161444 ↗
Aren't there a few games a player can play in without losing their redshirt? Does that mean we could have played Mitch in a few games without burning his shirt?
@BeddieKU23 Years ago I looked at 1st round sites and found we were almost always within 4-5 hours. Duke and UNC, both regularly powerhouses obviously would switch each year because they would never dream of Duke and UNC in the same regional. If Duke got a close 1st two rounds near home one year, then the next UNC would get it. Since they started the pod system those two teams have been getting more close 1st and 2nd round games.
@nuleafjhawk The Bears brilliant front office talent evaluators must have read that article and said naw, let's pick Trubisky instead. At least we didn't have to waste any nervous energy on a playoff run this year.
We have zero reasons to complain about where we play most of our NCAA games.
@KirkIsMyHinrich I think it was Connor Teahen
why would Moss foul a guy who is falling out of bounds?
@Texas-Hawk-10 You sitting by Jamie Dixon?