I wrote this piece before the national championship game between KU and UK on April 2.
By David Garfield
As Kansas marches into the national championship game tonight against Kentucky — the two winningest teams in college basketball history (UK is No. 1 and KU No. 2) — my mind races back to a recurring dream I had as a teenager growing up in Lawrence and attending South Junior High.
The picture and dream is indelibly etched in my mind. It’s the NCAA championship — Kansas vs. Kentucky. KU is down by one point with 20 seconds left in the game. Darnell Valentine, the Jayhawk point guard sensation with the tree-trunk thighs, dribbles the ball upcourt as KU fans around the country watch with bated breath. With seven seconds remaining, Valentine deftly penetrates the lane and then dishes the ball to Tony Guy. Guy takes one dribble and lets fly a 20-foot jumper at the buzzer that all KU faithful pray hits nothing but net.
Swish. KU wins the national championship.
I’d get mad chills thinking about that perfect scenario. Unfortunately, that dream never became reality as Guy and Valentine’s national title hopes fell short in 1981 with a loss to Wichita State in the Sweet 16.
But now, 31 years later, KU (32-6) — those tough, gritty, comeback kids — will go toe to toe with the Kentucky Wildcats (37-2) at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans in what could be a classic championship game.
It seems so fitting that two of the most tradition-rich and storied schools should finally meet for the first time in the national title game. These programs are intrinsically tied together with Adolph Rupp, the late, legendary Kentucky coach, actually playing for Phog Allen at KU and winning the Helms Foundation National Championship (retroactively) in 1922 and 1923.
Allen, the Father of Basketball Coaching, retired in 1956 as the winningest coach in college basketball history with 746 victories to just 264 losses in his 50-year coaching career. Eleven years later on Feb. 18, 1967, Rupp — the “Baron of Basketball” — broke his mentor’s record with a 103-74 win over Mississippi State. Rupp, who retired in 1972, amassed 876 career wins in his 42-year coaching tenure in Lexington, currently the fourth winningest mark just behind KU graduate Dean Smith.
The rich storyline between the two schools is even more intriguing considering that on Dec. 10, 1977, Rupp died at age 76 on the night Kentucky beat Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse during a game billed as “Adolph Rupp Night.”
I’m a history buff and always lived for those Kentucky and KU games during my wonder years growing up just five minutes from Allen Fieldhouse and watching most of the home contests live as the teams embarked on a 15-year series from 1971 to 1985. While KU won just twice during that span (in 1973 and 1985 — both in the fieldhouse), those games were full of intense excitement and energy in the Phog, giving me goosebumps each time.
The chills were never greater than on Dec. 12, 1981 at Allen Fieldhouse when my hero Guy swished a shot from the top of the key in overtime against Kentucky. I immediately jumped out of my seat (Section 2, Row 4, Seat 3) and hugged my dad out of sheer delight, wanting to hold on to that moment forever. Despite KU losing the game, the resounding cheers from the crowd after Guy hit that thrilling shot still echo in my mind three decades later.
While KU and UK met again after 1985 in a two-year series in 1989-90 (and in 1998 for a made-for-TV Great Eight Game and a 1999 NCAA tournament game), and then another home-and-home series from 2005-06, the series was again discontinued.
I’ve always felt KU and Kentucky should play on a regular basis. And so do fans of the two schools, including former Jayhawk standout and huge KU booster Tom Kivisto. Just before the Jayhawks and Wildcats tipped off in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Chicago in 2007, Kivisto told me he was working at the time to promote and renew a regular-season series between the two schools.
“You look at the history of these two teams, it’s unbelievable,” Kivisto said. “What’s great about that story is that a lot of modern day people who just get caught up on the road to the Final Four the last 20 years wouldn’t know that richness. So it’s a great new story that’s an old story to bring out as new. It would be a fabulous revival, one that would probably rival the Duke-North Carolina (series) that gets a lot of publicity. This one’s got a lot richer (history).
“They need to play every year, and we’re not far from each other. It ought to happen.”
While KU and UK haven’t played a home-and-home series since I talked to Kivisto in 2007, they now meet on the grandest stage of college basketball on Monday night in New Orleans, a rematch of their earlier battle this season on Nov. 15 in Madison Square Garden in New York, which Kentucky won, 75-65.
For basketball purists, this was meant to be since James Naismith — KU’s first basketball coach — invented the game and hung up the the first peach basket in 1891 at Springfield College in Massachusetts.
KU vs. Kentucky for college basketball biggest prize. It doesn’t get much better with both teams so steeped in hoops history.
After all, Kentucky has been to 15 Final Fours (tied for No. 3 all time); KU has earned 14 Final Four berths (No. 5 all time). UK has 52 NCAA tournament appearances (No. 1 all time); KU has been to the Big Dance 41 times (No. 4). The Wildcats have won seven NCAA championships (No. 2 all time); KU has won three NCAA titles (tied for No. 6 all time). And KU has boasted 28 consensus first-team All-Americans (No. 1 all time) to Kentucky's 24 (tied for No. 4).
While UK will be the overwhelming favorite to win the game, just like Oklahoma was in 1988 against KU in the national title game (KU upset the Sooners, 83-79), Kansas knows it can top the talent-laden Wildcats, especially if they “muddy” up the game and not let UK get in rhythm.
“I truly believe in my heart we can beat anybody,” KU coach Bill Self said. “We may not be favored in a series if we're playing four out of seven, but in my heart I believe we can beat anybody.”
KU showed its toughness against Kentucky early in its second game this season on Nov. 15 with the Jayhawks up by seven points twice in the first half before the Wildcats pulled away after halftime with a 75-65 victory.
Over four months later, the two best players in college basketball will battle again in Kentucky's Anthony Davis and KU’s Thomas Robinson. And two of the best coaches in college hoops will match wits in Kentucky’s John Calipari and KU's Self — two men who were on opposite sidelines in the 2008 national title game when Self’s Jayhawks beat Calipari’s Memphis Tigers. Calipari, as many know, once sat on the KU bench as an assistant to Ted Owens and Larry Brown in the 1980s.
While former Jayhawks Darnell Valentine and Tony Guy never had the opportunity to meet and beat Kentucky for the national championship, the dream lives on. Now, Tyshawn Taylor is the silver quick point guard who could be penetrating the lane tonight with seven seconds left with KU down one point to Kentucky and dishing to Elijah Johnson for the biggest 20-foot jumper of his life.
I can close my eyes and see Johnson — Mr. Big Shot — with his feet set and confidence high, effortlessly releasing the ball, the orange leather spinning upwards towards the goal.
Nothing but net at the buzzer.
KU wins the national championship ... and my childhood dream finally becomes reality.
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