The 1996-97 dream team was one of the best squads in Jayhawk history

Revisiting KU's magical 34-2 1996-97 team, which some Jayhawk basketball observers believe was the best team in school history. This squad would have certainly gone down as the all-time best had it won the national title, but the season ended in a heartbreaking loss to Arizona in the Sweet 16.

I wrote a 10-year anniversary story on this team in 2007 for Jayhawk Illustrated, and included some more information in this blog story. Here is the revealing, in-depth, behind-the-scenes story of that magical team and how it all came together, beginning with a fierce two-on-two game at Allen Fieldhouse between Jacque Vaughn,  Scot Pollard, B.J. Williams and Jerod Haase after KU’s Sweet 16 loss to Purdue in 1994.

Also, learn from Ryan Robertson how a poor medical decision by the doctors regarding Haase’s injured wrist cost Kansas dearly in its Sweet 16 loss to Arizona. And hear from Robertson other reasons why KU lost that game.

While both Robertson and B.J. Williams (I had a great interview with him as well for this story) still ache over that contest, they have wonderful memories of that close-knit team and what a magical run they had all season.

“That was just a dream season,” Robertson told me. “I was proud to be a part of it. It was a great, great journey except for the end. It was just a special, special team, and we had a great time and a great run, but it just didn’t end the way we needed it to.”

Despite the loss to Arizona, this team captured the hearts and imagination of Jayhawk and college fans throughout the country with its inspiring, selfless play and tremendous talent.

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By David Garfield

It was perhaps the best basketball team to ever don the crimson and blue. The 1996-97 Kansas Jayhawks, quite simply, had it all. And they also did it all except make the Final Four and win the national championship. Kansas (34-2) set a school record by winning its first 22 games and finished the season atop the AP poll for the first time in school history.

There were other all-time firsts for that team, including 29 regular-season victories, four players (Jerod Haase, Raef LaFrentz, Scot Pollard and Jacque Vaughn) eclipsing 1,000 points in the same season, most rebounds in a year (1,532), most free throws made in a season (698), most steals in a year (351), most blocked shots in a season (222), and two players (Vaughn and Pollard) selected in the first round of the NBA Draft.

And let’s not forget that seniors Vaughn and Haase were named first-team Academic All-Americans, while Vaughn was selected as Academic All-American of the Year. Moreover, a whopping six players (Vaughn, Pollard, LaFrentz, Paul Pierce, Billy Thomas and Ryan Robertson) wound up playing in the NBA.

The Jayhawks ended the year with a bitter loss to Arizona in the Sweet 16, but along the way, they captured the hearts and imagination of basketball fans throughout the country with their marvelous talent, their unselfish play, their fierce competitiveness, and their strong character.

KU was America’s team.

“That was just a dream season,” Robertson said during the 10-year anniversary of that season in 2007. “I was proud to be a part of it. It was a great, great journey except for the end. It was just a special, special team, and we had a great time and a great run, but it just didn’t end the way we needed it to.”

 

Senior B. J. Williams had a feeling that squad would be special right after KU lost to Purdue in the Sweet 16 his freshman season on March 24, 1994. The next day, KU coach Roy Williams called B.J, fellow freshmen Vaughn and Scot Pollard, and Jerod Haase (transfer from California who sat out that 1993-94 season and would be a sophomore the next year) into the locker room at Allen Fieldhouse.

“(Coach) told us then that we’d be the nucleus of the team the next three years,” Williams recalled from his home in Wichita in 2007. “He said we would set the standard and be treated like upperclassmen and looked up to as leaders.”

Roy Williams made a huge statement by entrusting the future of his basketball program to four kids who had not even finished their first school year at Kansas. That left quite an impression on this group, who didn’t waste any time preparing and immediately played a two-on-two game in Allen Fieldhouse. It was Haase and Williams vs. Pollard and Vaughn.

The four players battled that day like it was for a national title.

“It was very competitive,” Williams said. “Both teams really wanted to win. I think that set the standard for practices the next three years with just being competitive every day. Not that practices were bad (as freshmen), but we were more of a focused team the next three years than that first year. We competed a lot better in practices. ...We had fun.”

By the time Williams and his three classmates were seniors in 1996, all the sophomores and juniors fully knew how hard to work each day in practice. And when the incoming freshman class arrived, well, they followed the seniors’ direction as well.

“We led by example,” Williams said. “Jacque was more vocal, Jerod was a little more vocal. We worked hard. They worked hard. Sometimes practices were long and brutal, but nobody wanted to lose. We just competed. That was it. That’s what coach Williams taught us from day one. If we took care of what we needed to do, whether it was on defense, fastbreak, offense and handle our part of the game, then everything would fall into place.” 

And everything fell into place that entire 1996-97 season. After all, those seniors were smart enough to know early in their careers that you play like you practice.

 

“The harder we practiced, that always translates over into good games,” Williams said. 

Robertson, a sophomore on that team who now lives back home in St. Charles, Mo., and works as regional marketing director for Hartford Mutual Funds, said the seniors were the best. 

“That team was rare,” he said. “The seniors had been in some NCAA wars and never made it to the Final Four, and then they finally become seniors, and all of a sudden, it looked like they were ready to make that next step. And then there comes along other really good, positive, complementary pieces to that. Myself, Billy Thomas, T.J. Pugh. Coach Williams added pieces to the core that were already there. Nowadays that’s tough to find. You don’t find a group of guys that play a lot as freshmen, make it all the way through those four years without someone getting mad and leaving or going to the NBA.”

The 1997 team was very deep with nine guys who played double-figure minutes, and a 10th player (freshman forward Nick Bradford) who averaged 7.4 minutes per game.

Kansas was loaded and could beat you inside with LaFrentz and Pollard, outside with Haase, Thomas and Robertson, and Pierce could simply score at will. Then there was Vaughn, who ended his career as the all-time Kansas and Big Eight assist leader.

“In all my years of coaching, I’ve never been around a better leader than Jacque Vaughn,” Williams said at the time.

Vaughn actually began the the season on the sidelines with an injured wrist, while Robertson took over as starting point guard for 11 games. After opening the year beating Santa Clara, KU won the Maui Classic and then proved its mettle coming from 16 points down at halftime to beat No. 4 Cincinnati (72-65) and whipping No. 17 UCLA (96-83) in Pauley Pavilion on Dec. 7. Kansas actually led by 21 points at halftime.

“We actually had their fans booing at them at halftime,” B.J. Williams said. “I know we just came out and pretty much jumped out on top from the get-go. They missed some shots, and we were making our shots. We actually had their fans booing at them at halftime. We used to always try to go in to the arena and see how quick we could silence their crowd. We used to always try to hear the silence.”

LaFrentz led the team with a career-high 31 points, while Robertson dished out a career-best 11 assists. Robertson was doing a great job guiding the team without Vaughn, a preseason first-team All-American. Robertson admits he was a little scared when he first found out about Vaughn’s injury and being forced to lead the No. l team in the country.

“I went to Jacque and said, ‘I’m not sure I’m ready for this. I’m not sure I can handle this.’ He gave me reassurance and gave me confidence that I could handle it and I was good enough, and he would be there next to me and help me through some things. He was my biggest cheerleader. He was the one that rooted for me, to give me tips, and ask me to do things and look for things. He had my back even though I was in his position for a while. When you had (senior) leaders who don’t care about today or their stats and all they’re concerned about is the overall betterment to the team and how well the journey is going, they’re going to accomplish some great things. And that’s what they did.”

Robertson, who averaged 6.0 assists per game with an impressive 2.2 assist-to-turnover ratio, was more than happy to assume his place back on the bench when Vaughn returned.

“I can remember saying to the media (after the UCLA game), I kind of felt like coach Williams had handed me the keys to this really nice car, and just said, ‘Hey Ryan, you go drive this thing around for 11 games. I want the keys back and I’m going to give it to someone else. In the meantime, I don’t want you to wreck this thing.’ So I was just navigating the streets and trying to drive the car as best as I could without messing it up.”

Robertson knew his role, and so did everyone else on that team. They all had selfless egos who sacrificed for others.

“None of the teams I played on were as close as that ‘97 team,” Robertson said. “It wasn’t even close. Everyone had each other’s back. We were all confidants with each other. Everybody on and off the court took care of each other. The chemistry on that team was about as good as I’ve seen on any team. You can watch any game you want from ‘97, and you can see we had each other’s back. We protected each other defensively, and on offense, we shared the ball. It was a true team.”

KU was a team which always knew it could accomplish greatness.

“A lot of it came from the way our seniors played, the fact that we were senior led,” Robertson said. “I give a lot of credit in that area to coach Williams because the years I was there, he never talked about one of our teams the way he talked about that ‘97 team. He repeatedly talked to us, ‘You all continue to work the way you work, and you all have no idea how special this team can really end up being.’ And he never, in my four years, he never spoke of our team with that type of accolades or pat on the back. You just got the special feeling that not only did we think we were pretty good, but coach Williams thought we could do some special things. That was saying something.”

 

And the Jayhawks said a lot on the court. They didn’t lose a game before falling at Missouri in double overtime (96-94) on Feb. 4. KU didn’t play well, and Pierce, Williams and sophomore forward T.J. Pugh all fouled out. The Jayhawks rebounded from the loss and won 10 straight games heading into the NCAA Tournament.

“We thought we could beat anybody,” B.J. Williams said  “That’s how you got to think. You got to be confident in your style of play and your game plan. We didn’t want to change our game plan for anybody.”

And why would you when Kansas sported the dynamic duo of Pierce and LaFrentz. When Pollard went down in late January with a knee injury (missed eight games), LaFrentz stepped up his game and led KU in scoring nine straight contests. He scored at least 20 points in every game. The defensive minded Williams, who replaced Pollard in the starting lineup for eight games, said LaFrentz gave Kansas a dominating force inside.

“I don’t think he was that sure of himself until that ball was put into his hands and shoved down his throat, and we made him do something with it,” Williams said. “Raef always had the talent. He was long and had a nice touch, and he had a knack for getting the ball in the basket. ...He was always comfortable with scoring. I think the more comfortable he got and saw his role changing, he just wanted to adjust. It’s not pressure on him to do this. Nobody is going to get mad if he shoots a million times. It was best for our team at that time.”

LaFrentz and company took care of business in the first two rounds of the NCAA’s by beating Jackson State and Purdue by 14 points each before their Sweet 16 showdown vs. No. 15 Arizona, an extremely quick and athletic team led by guards Mike Bibby and Miles Simon. The Jayhawks didn’t play well and Haase was limited to just 14 minutes due to an injured wrist, which had bothered him all season, but became much worse after having a cortisone shot before the NCAA Tournament.

KU, which was down two points at halftime, trailed by 13 points with three and a half minutes remaining. Robertson and Thomas hit big buckets down the stretch, and Robertson’s three-pointer with 21 seconds left narrowed Arizona’s lead to one. However, the Wildcats upped the lead to three before Robertson shot a desperation three-pointer with seconds remaining. LaFrentz rebounded the air ball, dribbled frantically to the baseline and let go a three-point shot that all Jayhawk fans prayed would hit nothing but net. The jumper grazed the rim and KU’s title hopes were over.

Arizona 85, Kansas 82.

B.J. Williams had a great look of LaFrentz’s shot standing by the bench just a few feet from his teammate.

“I thought it was going to go in,” Williams said. “I remember I was shocked. It really didn’t set in on us until we hit that locker room. We kind of understood then that was probably the last time we were going to play together.”

Robertson, who did all he could that game to win (career-high 14 points in 18 minutes filling in for the injured Haase), was inconsolable afterwards.

“It was devastation,” he said.

Roy Williams choked back tears at the postgame press conference.

“I told them that life isn’t always fair and we had a fantastic, fantastic year,” he said. “It’s been a dream season, but we didn’t reach our final dream. That happens sometimes in life. But no one can have the feelings toward the kids in the locker room that I have toward these kids in my locker room.”

Robertson explained why KU lost to Arizona.

“It’s really pretty simple,” Robertson said. “Without blaming anybody, coach Williams won the national championship a couple of years ago with North Carolina and the reason they won is because Sean May absolutely carried (them). They had some complementary players around them, but Sean May took them on his back and carried them to a national championship. In order to win at that level, you’ve got to have your guys step up. It just so happens that that night, one of our guys, one was hurt and didn’t play (in the second half), Jerod. Scot Pollard fouled out (four fouls) with no points and one (five) rebound, and Jacque (3-10 FG, 0-4 from beyond the arc, five turnovers) played poorly. He just didn’t have a great night. That happens, but the problem is in the NCAA Tournament, you got to have your guys carry you. You got to have your guys say, ‘get on my back and let’s go.’ Unfortunately, it didn’t happen for us.”

Ten years later, that loss still pains Robertson and B.J. Williams. The two former ‘Hawks call it the biggest defeat of their careers.

“I still have a hole in my heart from it,” Robertson said softly. “It’s about as painful a memory as I have in life. I’ve lived a great life. I put these things in perspective, but from a basketball standpoint, it’s about as painful as it gets.”

The consummate team player, Robertson wishes Haase could have played in the second half that night. He could barely dribble the ball with his wrist injury and was forced to sit out.

“He played with a bad wrist all year,” Robertson said. “What they (doctors) decided to do was right before the NCAA Tournament was give him a cortisone shot. Well the problem with the cortisone shot is he had a terrible reaction to it, it made it so excruciating bad, he couldn’t play. Shoot, he had played the entire season with it well enough, my contention is we should have just left it alone if we weren’t 100 percent sure that the cortisone shot wasn’t going to ruin things. As a matter is, it ruined things. Not many people know this, but he was my roommate for the first round during the NCAA Tournament. He spent most of the night sobbing because he was in so much pain. That was a bad decision on the doctors to do that (cortisone shot).”

Despite the heartbreaking loss, Robertson looks back fondly over that team and the lifelong friendships made with his fellow teammates.

And how would he like that team to be remembered?

“As the best team in college basketball that year,” Robertson replied. “We weren’t national champions, but a lot people I think would look back and think to themselves, that was the best team for that year. We finished the year No. 1, we won the Maui Classic, we won the Big 12 championship. We won the (Big 12) tournament championship. We went through the entire year with one loss, so I don’t think that’s too big a stretch.”

“I’m going to tell you in a seven game scenario or however you want to test it, that team was probably the best (in KU history),” Robertson added. “I think from top to bottom, if you could eliminate just a one game fluke, I don’t think there’s ever been a team that could have competed with that one. I really don’t. If you’re going to talk about a one-game scenario, I don’t think it was the best because we weren’t able to perform in a one-game scenario the way maybe Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison’s teams was or Danny Manning and the 1988 team was. Those other teams got farther than we did.”

While KU didn’t advance to the Final Four, nobody can ever question its desire, heart, and team unity. 

“I think we were the most competitive (team in KU history),” B.J. Williams said. “We didn’t achieve the best results, but I think we played together and were probably the most cohesive unit that KU’s had. It wasn’t just like we’d play on the court or practice, then we’d all go our separate ways. We still hung out with each other quite a bit off the court. I think that’s what made that team so special.”

Both Robertson and B.J. Williams both loved playing for such a special coach in Roy Williams.

“He was tough. He was hard to play for,” Robertson said. “He expected a lot and if you didn’t fall in line, you weren’t going to play. Now, I look at him completely different. I Iook at him kind of as a confidant, somebody I can call and ask a favor of, or call and throw an important decision off, and kind of ask his opinion about something. I’ve got a great father, but (he’s) kind of a father figure type.”

B.J. said he’ll always be grateful for the life lessons Williams taught him, and that his former coach continues to teach. B.J. said said his dad talked to coach Williams a few months ago and had some encouraging and challenging words for him.

“Coach Williams said he wanted me to do better,” B.J. said. “That’s coach Williams. He’s always trying to get the best out of everybody. He just doesn’t coach a player, he cares about kids, their off the court habits, whether they’re going to school or not. I think a lot of what he does is get you ready for life, and not just your four years and out.

“I would probably lay down in front of a train for that man. He’s very genuine, he’s straight to the point. He calls it brutal honesty, and I believe it now. He tells you what he thinks and he’s intense. He’s got heart. Anything he does, whether it’s jogging, playing golf, or coaching, he’s 100 percent dedicated to whatever he’s doing. “

And that 1996-97 team was 100 percent dedicated as well. They played with passion and heart. They played with pride for the Jayhawk nation. And they played for each other. Ten years after the magical season ended in Birmingham, B.J. Williams knows how he’d like that group to be remembered.

“They were a family,” he said. “And I still feel those guys are my family.”

More from the 1996-97 team from Ryan Robertson

Raef LaFrentz: “Absolute go-to low post player. His turnaround jumper at the college level was unstoppable.”

Paul Pierce: “Best player I ever played with. My freshman roommate. Just an absolute hunger for basketball.”

Jerod Haase: “Heart and soul of the team, wanted it probably more than anybody we’ve ever had.”

Scot Pollard: “Fun loving, talented, kind of the do-anything you need to do to win big guy.”

Jacque Vaughn. “He was our leader, our floor general, and kind of our coach on the floor.”

Billy Thomas: “One of the best shooters I’ve ever played with. Absolutely deadly. Really athletic and a great guy.”

T.J. Pugh: “T.J. was my roommate after Paul left, did everything that coach Williams asked of him, did all the intangibles, great defensive player, got a lot out of what God gave him.” 

B.J. Williams: “X-factor, long, shot it well, great guy as well and plugged in...He could be a really long and great defensive player, or every once in a while he could step out and make a nice jump shot. He could do a lot of different things.”

Roy Williams: “He was our coach. He was probably the ultimate leader, he maneuvered us and had us through the best journey of my life until just one dumb game.”

More about why Dick Harp quit as KU head coach in 1964

Dick Harp made a huge statement and gave blacks an equal opportunity to succeed by starting four black players in the 1960-61 season (Nolen Ellison, Bill Bridges, Wayne Hightower and Al Correll), three years before the Civil Rights Act and five years before Texas Western made history by starting an all-black lineup in beating all-white Kentucky in the 1966 national championship game.

Harp’s starting of four blacks didn’t set well with many KU boosters and fans. Harp actually had seven black players on his 1960-61 team (Butch Ellison, Ralph Heyward and Jim Dumas were the others), an unheard of number at that time. In 1962, the national average of blacks on integrated teams was just 2.2 and blacks represented only 10 percent of players throughout the country.

Sports Illustrated reported in 1968 that “sometimes an alumnus would come to Harp and refer to the team’s black athletes as n----s, ‘and I’d get so mad I wanted to kill him.'"

Harp also became conscious of what he heard from fans during KU home games.

SI writer Jack Olsen stated that Harp “heard certain sounds from the cheering section whenever they started a few Negroes.”

“They’d play Sweet Georgia Brown, the Harlem Globetrotters theme song, when our boys came on the court, or they’d take the Kansas yell --’Rock Chalk, Jayhawk, KU,’ and change it to ‘Rock Chalk, Blackhawk, KU,’” Harp said.

This troubled Harp deeply.

Olsen stated that “Harp first began to think of quitting his job as Kansas coach on the day he found himself wondering whether it would offend the Kansas spectators if he started four Negroes.”

“All four of them deserved to start, but the mere fact I had to think about whether I should start that many brought me up short,” Harp said.

Olsen wrote that “Harp played the four and kept on playing them, but the insults of the fans and digs from alumni wore him down. ...He could feel the pressure for a quota system and he did not want to be a part of it.”

Three years after the 1960-61 season, Harp quit as KU head coach. There were other reasons he stepped down besides the "pressure for a quota system."

Max Falkenstien wrote in his 1996 book, “Max and the Jayhawks,” “that there was a decaying undercurrent in college basketball that troubled Harp, a coach whose honesty and integrity were deep-rooted. The pressures of recruiting and competing for the top players made the job of coaching an unhappy venture for him. There couldn’t be a more moral, idealistic, straight-shooter in the world than Dick Harp. He didn’t like what he saw in the profession.

“Unfortunately, he didn’t have any control over the trend of cheating that was rampant all over the country. He didn’t believe in it and didn’t participate in it.”

Harp’s former players understood why he resigned.

“That state of college basketball in the early 60s, the various pressures, the recruiting pressures, the way things were being done, were at odds with Dick’s sense of values. I think that was a struggle with him,” Harry Gibson told "Kansas Basketball: 'Legacy of Coaches.'"

“He was a very religious man and the times and things that were changing in athletics were kind of bothering him,” former All-American Walt Wesley added.

While Harp kept to himself when he resigned, his emotions exploded during his retirement dinner when he pointed and lashed out at specific alums for his decision to quit. To make matters worse, Phog Allen spoke at the dinner and had some unkind words about his former assistant.

Monte Johnson served as master of ceremonies that night.

“I introduced Doc that night, and he went to the microphone and he had not said hello before he mentioned that Dick Harp was not his choice to be basketball coach at Kansas following him,” Johnson told “Max and the Jayhawks.”

“He said it was Ralph Miller and in case they didn’t hear him, he repeated it. I reached up, and as best I could, pointed back to his notes, hoping he would return to talk. You could have cut the air in that room with a knife. Up until then, I didn’t realize the feelings Doc had. Dick kind of had a smile on his face during Doc’s remarks.

“There was no one more loyal to the University of Kansas than Dick Harp. I don’t think to this day I’ve heard anything come out of Dick’s mouth about what happened at that dinner.”

Johnson talked more about that dinner in an interview with the Kansas City Star’s Blair Kerkhoff in 2007.

"You could have heard a pin drop," Johnson said after Allen’s remarks. "I was sitting next to Dick, and you could see the hurt on his face. He had been so loyal to Doc as an assistant coach, and this was his thanks."

While Allen’s remarks obviously pained him, Harp took the high road.

“Dick turned the other cheek on that one and accepted it,” Waugh told me in 2015. “He took that from Doc, and yet he cared so much about Doc. Doc was an old man and he had an ego. Dick would have done anything for Doc Allen. Doc was as close as a father as Dick was concerned. Dick was so supportive of Doc, cared so much about him. ... That was a hard one”

Harp was a man who just didn’t get his respect, even at his own retirement dinner and even from the man who hired him as his assistant, the one who launched KU to the national championship in 1952 with his innovative defensive strategy that revolutionized college basketball.

Dick, you will never be forgotten and will always have my greatest respect and admiration. You left a lasting legacy on KU basketball and college hoops history. The world needs many more people like Dick Harp, a man who believed so strongly in racial equality. Dick made society a much better place.

A tribute to former KU player, assistant and head coach Dick Harp

Former KU player, assistant and head coach Dick Harp was a complex man who never received much respect, despite his longtime and lasting contributions to the University of Kansas and to basketball history. 

Harp is one of my true heroes whom I’ve put on a pedestal for many years, a person I greatly admire and first researched as I was writing my honors thesis at KU in 1988 on racial participation and integration in Kansas Basketball history: 1952-1975. I read about Harp in Sports Illustrated and in Jack Olsen’s 1968 breakthrough book, “The Black Athlete.” I came away with a lasting impression of him as a kind, genuine, good-hearted man who was a pioneer in recruiting black athletes to Kansas and as an idealist coach who wanted to use basketball as a vehicle to bring his white and black athletes closer together.

I’ve thought of Harp often since writing my thesis, and regret that I never interviewed him before he died in 2000.

After college and during my years covering KU basketball since 1998, I also learned that Harp was a giant in his profession who played or coached in four Final Fours at the same school, and was instrumental in helping lead KU to the 1952 NCAA title with his pressing and innovative defense as Phog Allen’s astute assistant. It was a defense which many coaches copied, including UCLA’s John Wooden, who ran off 10 NCAA titles in 12 seasons, including seven straight.

Nolen Ellison, one of Harp’s players in the early 1960s, spent about three hours with me talking about Harp and his experiences at KU in 2007 at a restaurant near his home in Kansas City. I asked to meet with Nolen that summer day since I wanted to learn more about Harp and Nolen’s experiences on an integrated team, especially the 1960-61 squad which featured seven African-Americans. Nolen’s older brother Butch, who also played at KU and was a member of the 1961 team, was there as well for a good portion of our talk and offered great insights about KU basketball history. 

Nolen again told me what he said during my Where Are They Now? interview with him in 2003 — that Dick Harp needs to be vindicated in Lawrence, Kan., in large part, since he recruited many black athletes at a time when few coaches in America were doing so. Not only did Harp recruit those athletes, he did everything possible to make sure they succeeded off the court at KU. He was deeply committed to his players, loved them, and wanted to see his white players “walk the extra mile” for their black teammates.

Of course, with any basketball coach and person, Harp was not without his flaws (as the late Wilt Chamberlain would attest), but to me, the real Dick Harp was a remarkable human being and a respected coach.

...

Thirty years after Dick Harp resigned as KU head basketball coach in 1964 and disillusioned about what the game had become, his former players who served under him as an assistant and head man honored his contributions to Jayhawk basketball and society during an early January reunion weekend in 1994.

It was a fitting tribute to a man who had done so much for Kansas basketball during his lifetime.

“Such an honor is long overdue for an intelligent, intense, low-profile man of 75 who is as loyal to KU as anyone who ever graced this earth,” longtime Lawrence Journal-World writer Bill Mayer commented on Jan. 7, 1994.

“He's not the flamboyant, flashy type, yet he has one of the sharpest senses of humor I've been fortunate enough to encounter. He loves to laugh and to make people laugh with his unlimited supply of stories and anecdotes. He and ‘Mar'Sue’ have retired here and Kansas University has never been represented with more dedication and dignity than it has been and is by these two.

“Dick is still sought out by coaches, including former student Dean Smith and Roy Williams, for advice and counsel. He long has had one of the keenest basketball minds extant and is recognized for that. But like most of the great ones, Harp's best contribution to society is as a strong moral and ethical citizen.”

The reunion was a resounding success with over 100 former players honoring Harp at a luncheon at the Adams Alumni Center. Then-KU coach Williams and athletic director Bob Frederick presented Harp a “framed piece of the original Allen Fieldhouse floor with his name, coaching years and championships embedded around a Jayhawk.”

Also, former player and member of the 1952 national championship team Bill Lienhard, who was then a Lawrence banker, announced creation of the Dick Harp Scholarship Fund, which will “provide an annual grant to a student athlete of the former coach's choice. The grant will be funded by ex-players and friends of Harp.”

Broadcaster Max Falkenstien was master of ceremonies at the roast-style event, while others spoke, including Jerry Waugh, former player and assistant to Harp, Jerry Gardner, a player in the early 1960s under Harp, Frederick, Williams and Mayer.

The Lawrence Journal-World reported that Williams said a principal reason behind his decision to leave his job as assistant coach for the University of North Carolina (in 1988) was the reverence and love of KU he gained from Harp during Harp's years as an administrative aide to UNC coach Smith, who also played on the 1952 national title team.

Harp was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support. While he said he enjoyed many events surrounding his association of KU basketball, this tribute was "one of the greatest experiences I've had -- something Martha Sue and I will remember forever.”

Everyone at the luncheon had great reason to celebrate this former coach and humble humanitarian. After all, the accomplishments are rich, poignant and lasting for Dick Harp. The ex-KU basketball coach, who died six years later in 2000 at age 81, is the only man ever to be with four Final Four teams (1940, 1952, 1953, 1957) as a player, assistant and head coach at the same school. 

He is also the only person to appear as a player, assistant coach and head coach in the NCAA basketball finals. Harp, too, is one of just five men who were involved in the national championship game as both a player and head coach.

He is the unsung hero who propelled KU to the national championship games in 1952 as head coach Phog Allen’s brilliant assistant, instituting an innovative pressing defense which would revolutionize basketball.

Harp is also the pioneer who helped integrate Kansas basketball and was a firm believer in racial justice and equality.

And Harp, as an assistant to North Carolina head coach Dean Smith from 1986-89, played an instrumental role in luring an unknown ‘Carolina assistant named Roy Williams to become head coach at Kansas in 1988, where Williams enjoyed a magical 15-year ride as KU head man, leading KU to four Final Fours and two national title games.

Williams affectionately described Harp as the closest thing to “Mr. Kansas Basketball.”

Smith has called Harp “one of the greatest basketball minds I have ever encountered, and one of the finest citizens this country has ever produced.” Smith said that Harp’s contributions as his administrative aide in the 1980s were “at great benefit to me. There’s never never been anybody I respect and admire more than Dick.”

However, such praise by Williams and Smith have been minimized over the years by Harp’s critics. He’s never really been given the credit for his accomplishments and unique gifts he bestowed upon his beloved alma mater.

Why?

Harp was actually put in position to fail when he first accepted the KU job after Allen’s mandatory retirement in 1956 at age 70. Allen, who never get the chance to coach Wilt Chamberlain (he became eligible the following year after Allen’s retirement), said KU could win the national title with “The Big Dipper, two aggressive cheerleaders, and two Phi Beta Kappas.”

“He had great misfortune to follow Dr. Allen, and then you give him the greatest player to come along in the game of basketball and he’s expected to succeed at the highest level. Although he was capable of performing at the highest level, he had no chance,” Waugh said in 1998.

Monte Johnson, who played under Harp and later became KU’s athletic director told Doug Vance and Max Falkenstien in their 1996 book, “Max and the Jayhawks,” that “Dick’s role, to me, was near impossible. If he didn’t win the national championship, he would be considered a failure. If he did win it, it was Doc’s players, Doc’s recruiting, all of Doc’s influence. It was a no-win deal.”

KU lost the national championship game in 1957 in triple overtime to North Carolina, and Harp’s strategy to slow the game down in the second half and overtimes came into question afterwards.

A poor lob pass by Ron Loneski to Chamberlain in the final seconds was intercepted, sealing KU’s doom and Harp’s fate.

“Dick Harp took over as coach in 1957 to find that everyone in the state expected him and sophomore Wilt Chamberlain to win the national championship. The Jayhawkers finished second, and it was considered a disgrace,” Sports Illustrated wrote on Dec. 7, 1964.

Lienhard wonders what might have been.

“If Wilt Chamberlain would have made that goal, he would have been one of our all-time great coaches, but he didn’t so everybody’s forgotten about Dick Harp now because of that. They blame him for not winning a national championship,” Lienhard said.

It is a “blame” he certainly doesn’t deserve.

Harp’s Jayhawks went 18-5 and finished second in the Big Seven during Chamberlain's junior season and final year at KU in 1957-58. With Chamberlain joining the Harlem Globetrotters, Kansas suffered an 11-14 record the next season.

Behind sophomore Wayne Hightower and junior Bill Bridges, KU rebounded in 1959-60 and shared a tie for the Big Eight title. The Jayhawks, who went 19-8 and 10-4 in conference play, lost to Cincinnati in the NCAA Midwest Regional Championship game.

After recording a 17-8 record in 1960-61, Kansas went into a tailspin during Harp’s final three seasons with records of 7-18, 12-13 and 13-12.

When KU suffered a 70-46 defeat to Kansas State in February of his final year in 1964, Harp was hanged and burned in effigy on the KU campus. Kansas, though, closed the season winning its last three games and five of its final eight.

Harp, who had openly discussed the possibility of retirement earlier in the season, finally called it quits on March 25, ending his eight-year head coaching career with a 121-82 record. Just the fourth head coach in KU’s storied history, Harp led KU to two conference titles and two NCAA tournament berths, including that magical run to the national championship game in 1957.

Mayer commended Harp for his fine work at Kansas after succeeding the legendary Allen.

“Suppose you followed Knute Rockne as football coach at Notre Dame, Bud Wilkinson at Oklahoma, John Wooden in basketball at UCLA and Red Auerbach with the Boston Celtics,” Mayer wrote on Jan. 7, 1994, the weekend when Harp’s former players had honored him.

“And started off your very first year with a player expected to make an even bigger impact on basketball than Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. That's as tough as my trying to take over for Ben Bradlee at the Washington Post, even without Woodward and Bernstein to add to the pressure.

“Dick Harp entered the equivalent of that scenario when he succeeded the immortal Phog Allen at Kansas for the 1956-57 season -- and inherited a promising sophomore named Wilt Chamberlain. The guys who followed Rockne, Wilkinson, Wooden and Auerbach didn't last as long or handle the post-legend challenge as well as Harp did in his eight years as head coach at KU.”

Unfortunately for Harp and KU, attendance and fan interest widely decreased since the Wilt years.

With a 32-43 record his last three years, SI wrote in 1964 that “home attendance, which averaged 15,500 in 1957, was down to less than 5,000 a game last year.”

“I have determined that it time for me to retire from coaching,” Harp said. “My association with the University of Kansas has been a wonderful experience.”

While it was a difficult decision to resign, Harp was comforted that he lived out a childhood dream.

“From the time I was a little boy, the biggest thing in my life was the University of Kansas,” Harp told the Topeka Capital-Journal. “If I had to draw a pattern, I would draw it again. I was at Kansas as a player and coach. What more could I ask?

“The fact that it’s time to change jobs doesn’t alter that.”

Waugh told me during a three-hour interview in 2015 that Harp always wanted to play for KU.

“He talked fondly about coming to KU and play basketball. That was his dream,” Waugh said. “The  opportunity to do that was a fulfillment of what he wanted in his life to play basketball for Doc Allen. Doc was such a prominent person at the time. Doc was known in the field. To be able to come here was a fulfillment to him as a student. He lived in a fraternity. He took advantage of the experiences that he had. The fraternity system was a big social deal, and to be a part of that was great.”

After playing on the national championship runner-up team in 1940, eight years later in 1948, Harp served as Allen’s assistant for eight years before fulfilling another dream he had in high school by serving as head coach at his alma mater for eight years.

Harp told “Max and the Jayhawks” that he made his decision to resign after that loss to K-State.

“We were having some guests to the house after the game, and I called my wife, Martha Sue, and told her I would be late. I went up and sat down on the grass under the Campanile Memorial. I was looking around and praying a little bit and probably crying a little when it started to rain. I thought, ‘OK Lord, I recognized what you want me to do now.’ So I got up and went home and told Martha Sue that I’d decided to resign. She wasn’t particularly happy with that decision, but it was my decision. That’s the way it went.”

Harp, though, actually made his decision to eventually resign a few years before his official announcement.

“The winning and losing, that’s why you play,” Harp told John Hendel in  his 1991 book, “Kansas Jayhawks: History Making Basketball.” 

“I enjoyed the play to see who was going to win and lose, but there came a point in my time here that I realized that I needed to do this other thing. So we made a decision a couple years before I did resign that that was what I was going to do. By then I recognized that for many different reasons, and there were a number of reasons, that I probably shouldn’t continue.”

After officially resigning that March day, Harp made it clear he would never coach again.

“Once you’ve coached at Kansas, there could be no other place to be happy,” Harp told the Lawrence Journal-World.

Mayer praised Harp for being a class act and stepping “out in style.”

“One of his big problems as a coach was that he too often tried to do too much for his players, to the point they didn’t do enough for themselves,” Mayer wrote. “But if a coach is to be condemned for something, that’s not bad to have on the record.”

Harp had grown disillusioned by the win-at-all costs environment of college athletics and the influence of alumni and boosters in recruiting. He was also troubled by the quota system in the number of black athletes he could play at the same time and the insults fans and alumni directed at his black players. A deeply religious man with strong moral values and ethics, Harp said he had “lost my way in life.”

“I probably did change when I became head coach (at Kansas),” Harp told “Max and the Jayhawks.”

“After the experience with (coaching) Wilt, I was a different person. I was really upset with some of the things (outside the program among boosters) that were done with recruiting. I reached a certain point and decided that I needed to give up the job because I had lost — not my enthusiasm — but my way in life.”

Retiring athletic director Dutch Lonborg was not caught off guard by Harp’s resignation.

“This comes as no big surprise since we realize Dick has been contemplating the move for sometime,” Lonborg said. “I personally want to express my thanks to him for his contribution to our athletic program and wish him well in whatever future endeavor he follows.”

Waugh told Ken Davis in his 2013 book, “100 things KU fans should know and do before they die,” that “after he became (Kansas) coach, he was never happy."

Waugh elaborated about Harp’s feelings to Doug Vance and Jeff Bollig in their 2007 book, “What it Means to be a Jayhawk.”

“To be a part of Kansas basketball was the heart of him,” Waugh said. “He was so proud of being at Kansas, to be a Jayhawk and be a part of all of this. I don’t think there has ever been anyone who felt it as deeply as Dick Harp did.

“There is no doubt in my mind that that Dick had all the ingredients to be a great coach. He was presented with the opportunity he had wanted all of his life: to come back to the University of  Kansas and be the head basketball coach. If anyone had a dream, Dick had that one and saw it fulfilled. Then when he got that dream, he didn’t enjoy it.”

Josh Jackson ranks as one of KU’s all-time great freshman players

Josh Jackson had a superlative freshman season for Kansas in 2016-17 before jumping to the NBA as the No. 4 overall pick by the Phoenix Suns.

The 6-8 swingman ranks third in points for a KU freshman (572) behind Andrew Wiggins (597) and Ben McLemore (589) and second in scoring average (16.3) behind Wiggins (17.1).

Jackson also tied Danny Manning for No. 1 in rebounding with 258 boards, was fifth in rebounding average (7.4) and sixth in blocks (37).

He helped lead KU to a 31-5 record, Big 12 championship, an Elite Eight appearance, and a No. 3 AP ranking, while named Big 12 Rookie of the Year and first-team All-Big 12.

However, his NBA career hasn’t lived up to expectations these past two seasons for the struggling Suns, who finished tied for the second-worst record (19-63) in the league in 2018-19. Head coach Igor Kokoskov was just fired after one season.

After averaging 13.1 points in his rookie season (35 starts in 77 games), Jackson regressed in Year 2, only averaging 11.5 points per game on 41.3 field goal shooting and just 32.4 percent from three-point range and 67.1 percent at the charity stripe. The Detroit native started 29 of 79 games while averaging 25.2 minutes per contest. 

It will be worth following if the Suns continue giving Jackson a chance and room to improve, or if they wind up trading him under the new coaching staff.

While his NBA career is a still a work in progress, let’s look back at November 2016 when Jackson was a rising star as a KU freshman. Here is the story I wrote for that issue in Kansas City Sports & Fitness Magazine.

By David Garfield

Josh Jackson has heard all the hosannas and rave reviews since he began tearing up the AAU, USA Basketball, and high school scene. Jackson, a 6-8 swingman and now freshman phenom at Kansas, was rated the No. 1 player in the 2016 class and named co-MVP of the McDonald’s All-American game while averaging 26.9 points, 13.1 rebounds and 6.3 assists per game at Prolific Prep in Napa, California, in 2015-16.

KU coach Bill Self was the latest to magnify the hype when he signed Jackson last May after a long and intense recruiting battle in which the Detroit native chose the Jayhawks over Michigan State and Arizona while immediately lifting Kansas into the sexy pick as a Final Four and national championship contender.

"Josh has been a guy that is so respected in all high school circles the last four years. He is probably as highly thought of as any recent player to come out of high school because of his competitive nature,” Self said at the time. “He is very similar to Andrew Wiggins. He's a tall guard that can do a lot of everything. We feel his impact on our program next year will be as much as any freshman will have on any college program. He's extremely athletic but more importantly extremely competitive. We have a very competitive culture at Kansas but I think it just got improved with the signing of Josh. He's a guy that everybody enjoys playing with because he is so unselfish but also a guy that can take a game over."

Now that he’s a Jayhawk, Jackson remains thrilled with his decision to attend KU.

"I felt like this place was special,” he said. “I felt like I could get the most out of being here, on and off the court. I felt like coach Self really cared about me -- more than just a basketball player. I really felt a family feeling here and I still feel that today. I think that's one of the most amazing parts about the University of Kansas."

Jackson, who was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Week on Nov. 21 for his play in wins over No. 1 Duke and Siena (13.0 ppg, 80 percent field goal shooting, and scored 11 of 15 points in second half versus Blue Devils), has a chance to be an an “amazing” player like Wiggins, the former KU star and NBA Rookie of the Year for the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2015. He knows all about the comparisons to Wiggins from Self and other basketball gurus. After all, they both chose KU, both the same height, both the No. 1 player in their high school class, and both great athletes.

However, while Jackson is “extremely athletic,” he doesn’t possess the freak athleticism of Wiggins. They both shoot similar from the perimeter, though Jackson is a better ball handler, passer and playmaker, while Wiggins is the superior finisher at the rim.

Jackson, who played his junior and senior seasons at Prolific Prep, is flattered by the comparisons, but he’s not worried about being the second coming of Andrew Wiggins. He’s just trying to be the next Josh Jackson.

“It’s an honor to be compared to such a great player,” said Jackson, the Preseason Big 12 Freshman of the Year and a member of the Naismith National Player of the Year Watch List and John R. Wooden Award Watch List.

“I looked up to Andrew when he was in high school a little bit. Still talk to him here and there. He offers me advice all the time. But I think I’m my own player. (We) are similar in some ways, but I think we’re really different.” 

ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said Jackson doesn’t take a backseat to the possible future Hall of Famer.

“Josh Jackson is every bit as good as Andrew Wiggins,” Bilas said.

Three days after the Siena game on Nov. 21 against UAB at Sprint Center in Kansas City, Jackson had the best game of his young career. He scored 22 points and had seven rebounds, three assists and three steals in 33 minutes. Jackson also had some thunder dunks, including one show-stopping slam that got the crowd roaring.

He definitely punished the rim throughout the night.

“I’ve heard (Oklahoma City Thunder superstar guard) Russell Westbrook say, ‘I dunk the ball so hard that nobody challenges me when I go to the basket,’ so that’s what I’m trying to do," Jackson said.

UAB coach Robert Ehsan was extremely impressed with Jackson’s play.

“I saw him in high school, as most people did. But the more I’ve watched film on him, he’s an extremely talented player,” Ehsan said. “His versatility is what I’ve been surprised with. How many different things he can do on the floor: right hand, left hand, drive, post-up. Obviously, he is very athletic. I think he’s a tremendous player.”

So does Self.

“Certainly he’s an unbelievable talent that’s starting to get more and more comfortable all the time,” Self said. “There’s a lot of things he can work on to get better obviously, but he’s a talented kid. I don’t know if we’ve had anybody of that size, that good with the ball.”

Jackson’s road to greatness began as an 8-year-old playing one-on-one against his parents in their backyard. These were fun, yet incredibly intense games as Jackson’s competitive fire was born.

“They would never take it easy on me. They would always foul me kind of hard, block my shot all the time,” Jackson recalled. “They would beat me all the time. It really made me mad sometimes because I always wanted to win. I think that's where I really got it (competitiveness) from."

But Jackson learned from his parents’ lessons and grew as a basketball player and person. Every time he got knocked down, he got back up. Every time he got his shot blocked, he took the ball back hard to the rim. He improved his game and eventually beat his mom, Apples Jones, in a one-on-one game when he was 13 years old.

“She held her own,” Jackson said as the two finally stopped playing after Josh’s first big win over his mom, a defining moment for him and his career as he began to attract recruiting attention in the eighth grade.

Jones was a great basketball player and fierce competitor herself, competing for Allen County (Kan.) Community College and then UTEP. She played an instrumental role in teaching her son about the nuances of the game and also about life. Jackson, who calls her mom his “hero,” remains quite grateful the two are so close. Jones actually stayed in Lawrence when Jackson first arrived in town in June for summer school, helping her son get settled and acclimated to college life.

“I couldn’t even tell you how much,” Jackson told reporters then about what his mom means to him. “She’s just been an amazing woman in my life, amazing person. (She’s) helpful so much, always supportive. Obviously, she’s here right now. She doesn’t have to be here, but she loves me and wants to support me so that’s why she’s here. She has been really helpful to me around the campus. She’s been through her college years, and she tells me what to look out for, what to do, what not to do.”

Jones actually played a big role in helping Jackson with the recruiting process, but never pressured her son to choose Kansas or any other school.

"Her input was always the same; she wouldn't make the decision for me, but she wanted me to end up somewhere where she knew that they cared about me more than just basketball, more than just me dribbling the ball,” Jackson said. 

Jackson is embracing each moment of his college experience, one which could be a magical year for him and the No. 5 Jayhawks before he surely jumps to the NBA after this season as a possible No. 1 overall draft pick. He publicly stated before the season that his ultimate wish was to go 40-0. While that dream was dashed with an overtime loss to No. 11 Indiana in the season opener on Nov. 11, the fiery Jackson hopes KU can run the table the rest of the season.

Jackson will be a huge key if that goal is to become reality. He is multidimensional, has an incredible feel for the game, improving as a shooter, and is extremely mature and worldly for a freshman. Self realizes this is a truly special player who could go down in his one year at Kansas among the school’s all-time great freshmen like Wiggins and the legendary Danny Manning. 

“Josh is everything he’s advertised in our eyes,” Self said. “He’s got a chance to be one of the elite players in the country as a freshman. Very competitive, tough minded. He has a chance to be one of the special freshman the program has ever known.”

The 1970-71 KU team had it all in reaching the Final Four

The 1970-71 KU Final Four team had it all--size, speed, quickness, chemistry and talent. Led by high-scoring forward Dave Robisch and sweet shooting guard Bud Stallworth, KU appeared in its first Final Four since the 1957 team lost the national title game to North Carolina. The Jayhawks were also the only team in school annals to sweep the Big Eight conference, going 14-0. It would be 31 years until 2002 when KU would go unbeaten again in league play.

Kansas only lost one game heading into the Final Four when UCLA (eventual national champs) beat the 'Hawks.

Here is a story I wrote for Jayhawk Illustrated in 2009 on that tremendous 1971 Final Four team, which went 27-3 and remains one of the best teams in school history.

It was head coach Ted Owens’s first Final Four at Kansas.

“We were awesome,” Stallworth told me in 1990. “I thought we were the best team in the country. We were the cockiest team I had been around in a while. We felt we had a legitimate shot to win it all. ... We thought we were one of the best teams KU had ever put on the floor.”

By David Garfield

When Ted Owens replaced Dick Harp as head basketball coach at Kansas in 1964, he aimed to rebuild the KU tradition, get fans believing in Jayhawks’ hoops again, and return KU to the Final Four.

Kansas had just suffered two out of three losing seasons and had not been to a Final Four since the Wilt Chamberlain-led team lost to North Carolina in the 1957 NCAA championship game.

In Owens’ second season (1965-66), his Jayhawks came just short of the Final Four, losing to Texas Western in the Midwest Regional Final and finishing 23-4. KU then posted 20-plus wins the next three seasons before going 17-9 in 1969-70.

Returning the next season included nine lettermen and seven players who had been starters at one point, including senior center Roger Brown, senior forwards Dave Robisch and Pierre Russell, and junior guards Bud Stallworth and Aubrey Nash.

This was their time, their chance to shine.

“It was all or nothing,” Brown said in a 2001 interview. “Four years had gone by so quick. You turn around and the last year is right here. We had the nucleus. ... I think the overall impression is everybody felt good about that year. We had a lot of confidence.

“We just went out and played.”

KU made a huge statement in its first game against No. 5 Long Beach State at Allen Fieldhouse on Dec. 1, running to a 32-8 lead at halftime en route to a 69-52 victory. The Jayhawks’ imposing 1-3-1 zone gave LBSU fits.

“They couldn’t even get a shot off,” the late KU assistant Sam Miranda said in 2000 about that first half. “The crowd was screaming and yelling. We just played tremendous.”

Kansas continued to play tremendous basketball, winning its next five games, including victories over Saint Joseph’s and Houston to capture the Jayhawk Classic. Brown dominated the title game against Houston, posting 23 points and 21 rebounds while blocking numerous shots.

In John Hendel’s 1991 book, “Kansas Jayhawks: History Making Basketball,” the author reported that Houston coach Guy Lewis was extremely impressed over KU after the game.

“I can only say,” Lewis said, “we’ve never been intimidated in the inside like we were tonight since we played against (UCLA’s Lew) Alcindor.”

However, two days later, KU suffered a tough loss at Louisville, 87-75.

“(We) gave them all they wanted,” Stallworth said in a 1990 interview.

KU wouldn’t lose again until the Final Four.

“I blame myself for the one loss we had that year,” Owens told Hendel. “It was just poor scheduling. We had (the Jayhawk Classic) on Friday and Saturday against really good teams. Then we traveled on Sunday to Louisville to play on Monday night.

“We full-court pressed all the time and our team was just very tired and emotionally wrung out.”

The Jayhawks rebounded from the Louisville loss to win 21 straight games. They won the Big Eight title for the first time since 1966 with a perfect 14-0 record, one of two squads (K-State in 1959) to run the table in the eight-team league schedule. Kansas would go another 31 years before the Jayhawks swept conference play in 2001-02 with a 16-0 record.

KU’s final four wins in Big 8 play in 1971 were decided by five or less points, including consecutive overtime victories against Oklahoma at home and Missouri at Columbia. In all, KU won seven regular-season games by five points or fewer.

“We were a good team because we won tough games,” Brown said. “We won on the road.”

This team had the heart of a champion which meshed together both on and off the court. Above all, each player knew their role. Brown (11.2 ppg) was the defensive-minded rebounder who could block shots with the best; Robisch (19.2 ppg) was the scoring machine inside and out; Russell (10.3 ppg) was the hustling, defensive specialist; Stallworth (16.9 ppg) was the sweet outside shooter; and Nash (6.6 ppg) the playmaking, ball-hawking point guard.

“We just jelled as a team,” Brown said. “Everyone pretty much got along with one another and we wanted to win. We all played hard. Everybody seemed to be on the same page. I think our team was about business. We knew we were going to win if we went out and did what we were supposed to do. And that’s what we did.

“Everything fell into place.”

This team was big with Brown and Robisch at 6-10, Stallworth at 6-5 and Russell at 6-4 Yet they could press and run.

“Defensively, that was our main part,” Brown said. “We were huge, but we could move.  Back then, a lot of teams that would have that type of size I don’t think would be as mobile. We could get up and down the floor and put the ball in the basket.” 

Owens said that was, indeed, a great defensive and rebounding team.

“We only had two extraordinary shooters — Dave Robisch and Bud Stallworth— but we had a great team of athletes,” Owens said. “We held our opponents to 37 percent shooting from the field. ... As a team, we only shot 44 percent ... but we dominated the boards.”

Stallworth told author Doug Vance in his and Max Falkenstien’s 1996 book, “Max and the Jayhawks: 50 Years on and off the air with KU Sports,” that the 1970-71 team had it all with “size, speed, quickness and confidence. ... just all the components.”

As the Jayhawks kept winning, they won over fans and the Lawrence and KU community in a time of great political and social unrest on campus.

“It was a campus that had a lot of disruption,” Owens told ESPN Regional TV’s “Kansas Basketball: A Century of Tradition” in 1998. “That team pulled that campus together.”

The student body was fully behind Kansas after it won the Big 8 championship and now one of 25 teams in the NCAA tournament aiming to cut down the national title nets in Houston.

 

The Jayhawks’ road to the Final Four began in Wichita, where they survived and won their rematch with Houston, 78-77, before holding off Drake, 73-71. Robisch and Stallworth led the way against Houston with 29 and 25 points, respectively, while Robisch was top scorer again vs. Drake in the Midwest Regional final with 27.

“It ranks right up there with everything,” Brown said about beating Drake to advance to the Final Four. “It was definitely a big moment.”

Stallworth said the Drake game was a battle.

“It was a lot of give and take,” Stallworth said. “We felt we were supposed to win, but they played us.”

And KU came on top.

“Everybody focused in,” Stallworth said. “To be one of the final teams out of all the teams in the country, you got to get there to understand what that accomplishment is. A lot of people don’t understand that. When a lot of people criticize Ted (for his coaching record), I know great coaches who’ve coached for 40 years and never been to the Final Four. We were there, 27-1, 21 straight victories and in the Final Four.”

Kansas next had a date with UCLA in the national semifinals, the No. 1 team in the land which had won six of the last seven NCAA titles and featured Henry Bibby, Curtis Rowe, Sidney Wicks and Steve Patterson. 

Both the Bruins and Jayhawks entered the game with 27-1 records.

Owens and his players couldn’t wait to take on Goliath. 

“I think every coach dreams about playing UCLA,” Owens said three days before the matchup, according to “The Crimson and Blue Handbook: Stories, Stats and Stuff about KU Basketball."

 

“Every time I’ve seen them on television, I’ve wondered how to play them.”

The players certainly weren’t in awe of legendary coach John Wooden’s Bruins.

“It was our belief that we could win,” Stallworth told Vance. “We thought we had the right kind of team and given the opportunity at the end, we would find a way. We had three seniors and two juniors in the lineup — guys that had been through the wars together. The mystique of UCLA didn’t bother us.”

Unfortunately, KU hit a setback when the Final Four’s opening game between Western Kentucky and Villanova went into two overtimes.

“We were ready to come out of the tunnel, the adrenaline was going,” Stallworth recalled about the first overtime. “We had to sit back down. (And then there was) another overtime. I thought we kind of lost our edge when we didn’t get to play right when that game ended and come on the court and had to sit out and get hyped and focused (again).”

KU, indeed, opened the game cold and was down by seven at halftime. While the Jayhawks rallied to tie the game, UCLA pulled away and won, 68-60. Robisch led KU with 17 points. The Bruins would go on to win the national title.

“It was an excellent team but it was a team that could be beaten,” Owens told Hendel. “We were behind and they had their famed full-court press. We full-court pressed them and tied the game. Then Dave Robisch hit a shot to put us two up but they called him for traveling, and it kind of cracked our momentum a little bit. I think we had them on the ropes.”

The questionable traveling call was definitely the turning point of the game. UCLA scored the next four points on goaltending calls by Brown.

“After that, we could never make up the difference,” Brown said. “A couple of bad calls here and there took us right out of it.”

KU’s cause was also hurt when Stallworth (12 points) suffered a leg injury just five minutes into the game.

“It just took a step away from what I wanted to do,” Stallworth said.

With their national championship dreams dashed, KU lost to Western Kentucky, 77-75, two days later in the Final Four consolation game.

Still, it was a magical season. Kansas went 27-3, winning the most regular-season games at that time in school history. Owens accomplished what he set out to do upon taking over for Harp in 1964 — restore the KU tradition and lead the Jayhawks to a Final Four.

Kansas would return again to the Final Four three years later in 1974. But it was that ‘70-71 team which put the Jayhawks back on the national map with one of the greatest teams in school history.

“That was great basketball,” Brown said. 

“We were awesome,” Stallworth added. “I thought we were the best team in the country. We were the cockiest team I had been around in a while. We felt we had a legitimate shot to win it all. ... We thought we were one of the best teams KU had ever put on the floor.”

Former Jayhawk B.J. Williams made his mark as a defensive standout

B.J. Williams was one of the best defenders of the Roy Williams era, considered a defensive stopper off the bench. He had very quick feet and could play great post defense and also guard impressively on the perimeter. Roy Williams often had B.J. sub for superstar Raef LaFrentz late in games for his defense since he had much quicker feet than the future No. 3 pick in the 1998 NBA Draft.

Williams starred at Wichita South High School, leading South to the state title his senior year in 1993 (25-0 and outscored foes by an average of 37 points per game) while also named the Kansas 6A Player of the Year and Gatorade Player of the Year in Kansas. A two-time consensus all-state selection, Williams averaged 16.4 points and 6.5 rebounds per game his senior year while shooting a scorching 69 percent from the field.

Williams’ high school teams combined for a 90-6 record during his four-year career, while the 6-8 forward finished his prep career with 1,163 points, the No. 3 all-time scorer behind Ricky Ross (former Jayhawk) and Val Barnes.

Blessed with a 32-inch vertical leap, Williams overcame asthma as a youth.

From the 1995-96 KU Media Guide

Favorite Book: “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.”

Favorite KU class: “Sociology.”

Person in history I would like to converse with: “My first ancestor.”

Favorite sports hero: “Magic Johnson.”

Best player I have played against: “Richard Scott.”

If I were president of the NCAA for a day, I would: “Allow players to get paid.”

If I had one million dollars, I would: “Buy my family a new house.”

My advice to kids is: “Keep your priorities straight.”

To get psyched up for a game, I: “Listen to music and think about where I come from.”

My biggest thrill in sports was: “Beating UConn by 29 points last season.”

Years from now, I’ll still laugh about the time: “Greg Ostertag ran over his foot with his own van.”

From the 1996-97 Media Guide

Best movie I’ve ever seen: “The Color Purple.”

Best book I’ve ever read: “Pride and Prejudice.”

Favorite class at KU: “Colonial Latin American History.”

Person in history I would like to converse with: “Frederick Douglass.”

When I played basketball as a kid, I pretended to be: “Julius Erving.”

The best athlete I’ve played against: “Ray Allen.”

Ten years from now, I hope to be: “Celebrating the 10th anniversary of KU’s NCAA title.”

My biggest thrill in sports was: “Beating Oklahoma State for the conference title.”

The toughest thing about being an athlete is: “Determining who your real friends are.”

If were the head coach for a a day, I would: “Start all the walk-ons.”

If had one million dollars, I would: “Give one million people one dollar.”

Years from now, I’ll still laugh about the time: “I had to run sprints because I laughed at a teammate.”

My prized possession is: “My daughter Jaiden.”

The impressive thing about coach Williams is: “His willingness to stand behind you.”

Williams spoke to me in 2003 about his early childhood basketball memories and his recruitment to Kansas.

“I think I started playing on my first team when I was 5. I wasn’t very good. Not at all. I didn’t even make the all-star team. I remember that. It was with the Salvation Army Biddy Basketball. When I was 7, my next-door neighbor was always playing. He wasn’t very good, but he was older than me. He had a basketball goal, so I’d go over there and shoot and play at his house. I was always playing with the older kids. When you play with older kids, they beat you up and you get better. I noticed when I got up there, I wasn’t tall by any means. I was still short. I was a short kid. Just playing, just continuously playing. He was always trying to make his junior high team and high school team. He never made the team, but he was always outside practicing playing, so I’d go over there with him. His name was Jeff Cunningham, and he was about five years older than me.

“I was recruited by UCLA, University of Cal Santa Barbara, Stanford, Oklahoma State, KU, K-State. There was Nebraska. There were quite a few. There was Alabama, who I liked. I only took one visit. I visited KU and that was it. I chose KU over Alabama and St. Louis. I just knew Steve (Woodberry, fellow Wichita South High graduate) went there (KU), and he enjoyed it a lot. He talked about it quite a bit. With Steve talking, I had more of an insight on a coach than I would if I had visited someplace else. I knew Steve growing up as a kid and everything, and I respected his opinion I think more than I would any of these other coaches telling me what you want to hear. I rather hear from a friend how a coach really is. He had some good things to say about the coaching staff, and he had some bad things to say about them. I respected him. That was a deciding factor, just the atmosphere and the players. I met Richard (Scott) through Steve, and they told me a lot about the school. Steve was three years older than me. He played Biddy Basketball, too, as a kid. I was always in the lower age bracket. Coach (Steve, longtime coach at Wichita South) Eck was a big part of me knowing him, I think.”

Here is the Where Are They Now? story I wrote on Williams in 2003 for Jayhawk Insider.

By David Garfield

B.J. Williams admits he was a little overwhelmed and shocked when he first arrived at Kansas for his freshman basketball season in 1993.  

A heralded product from Wichita South High School, Williams quickly found out how much more athletic and physical the college game was. It was here in Allen Fieldhouse where the skinny 6-8, 200-pound Williams got a hands-on Basketball 101 lesson from rugged 6-7, 235 pound senior forward Richard Scott every day in practice.  

“I’ve never faced a player tougher than him since I played against him,” Williams said. “He probably helped me out the most. That helped me concentrate on my defense, because I never wanted Richard to score. He was a good friend of mine, and we always hung out. But I hated for him him to score. He would always talk a little trash, especially at the first of the year, he and Steve Woodberry would. That motivated me, I guess, to focus more of my attention on stopping Richard.”

 

With Scott’s and, of course, coach Roy Williams’ teachings, Williams eventually blossomed into a defensive standout for Kansas. He now ranks No. 11 all time at KU in career blocked shots (112). Not too bad for a player who averaged just 15.5 minutes per game during his Jayhawk career (1993-97). With great scorers on board like Scott, Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce and Billy Thomas, Williams looked for other ways to make a name for himself. 

 

“I took it upon myself to mold myself into a defensive player, where I could impact a game without making a basket or making a great assist,” Williams said. “I got a high after blocking a shot or playing good defense. ... We all took pride in our defense more so than our offense. One of our rules was always defense takes care of your offense.”

And Williams loved his supporting role coming off the bench and backing up stars Scott and LaFrentz at power forward. An athletic player, Williams also had the quickness to guard opposing team’s small forwards.  

“I think I actually had it better than them (Scott and LaFrentz),” Williams said. “We always had a scouting report on a player, but you never really know what they can do and what their abilities are until you actually see them. I actually had more of an advantage than Richard and Raef did because I got to see the players go up and down a couple of times before I would come in and see how they’re moving and how they’re posting up, or how they’re getting the ball or what kinds of screens they’re setting. So when I would come in, I always had a mindset knowing how he’s going to try and get open. I enjoyed it.”

Indeed, he did. Williams also relished playing on winning teams. KU went an astounding 115-21 during Williams’ career, including three conference championships, three Sweet 16 appearances, and one trip to the Elite Eight. The 1996-97 team was extremely talented. With LaFrentz and Pierce leading the way during Williams’ senior campaign, KU went 34-2. The quest for a national championship, though, fell short with a loss to Arizona in the Sweet 16.

“I really thought, especially my senior year, that we had the team that was good enough to win it all,” Williams said. “I still think that we let coach Williams down a little bit. ... I watched them Monday (NCAA championship between KU and Syracuse) and I wanted so bad for him to get his first one (title). I still think in the back of my mind that we were the team that should have done it.”

The former Jayhawk (career averages of 3.7 ppg and 3.4 rpg) felt blessed with the opportunity to play for coach Williams.

“He’s a great guy,” Williams said. “He’s very much like a father figure while you’re at school and sometimes even when you’re out of school. He’s easy to talk to. He’s very personable.”

Williams also cherished teaming up with guys like Vaughn, Pierce, LaFrentz and Pollard — names which now adorn NBA rosters.

“It’s a family,” Williams said. “People look at them as superstars making lots of money — celebrities. But I still see them as people that I can talk to. Just friends.”

Within this prized family, each player had their own niche off the court. So what was Williams’  specialty?

“I was always the guy that was talking,” he said, “and it didn’t matter who you were or what you did, I was going to say something about what you were wearing, what you were doing, or how you were acting or what you looked like. That was just what I did. Sometimes it got me in trouble. Sometimes, I didn’t choose the best times to make a smart-aleck comment.”

Like the time he made fun of Pollard when the 6-11 center shot an air ball during practice. Williams 

laughs now when recalling the scene.

“I said, ‘That’s zero percent right here.’ Then coach Williams blows the whistle and has someone get the stats on me and checks my shooting percentage. He says a few comments, and then I’m on the line running. He could never tire me out. I could run sprints forever.”

After his storybook collegiate career ended in 1997, Williams continued playing basketball overseas (Finland, Taiwan, China and France) until 2001, when he returned home to Wichita to spend more time with his children — daughter Jaiden, now 7, and son Jarrin, 4. He had a good experience with professional basketball, although Williams said it was an adjustment of sorts.

“It’s just a business,” said Williams, who averaged over 20 points per game. “There’s not very much fun to it. You win games, they played you. You lose them, they might not say a word to you. ... Over here, it’s so much more of team game. Over there, it’s more of, ‘You’re an American. You have to do this (score) or you go home.’”

Upon coming back to Wichita in 2001,Williams first was employed nine months with a law firm doing administrative work. He then changed jobs and worked in the pharmacy department for St. Francis Regional Medical Center for six months before accepting a job this past month with the Mental Health Association of south central Kansas. Williams monitors special education children with behavioral disorders. The Wichita native reaps the rewards and satisfaction of seeing a lonely kid light up a room with a smile.

“They’re all fun,” Williams said. “They’re always happy. It’s just in some cases, they don’t get enough attention from their parents. Or they don’t look the same as other kids in school, so other kids make fun of them It just sets them apart from other kids and makes them feel alone. I go into the school and I’ll just sit with him while they’re in class, maybe help them with their homework. ... It’s more about being a friend to the kid and making him feel that he’s not alone.”

While it’s been about one year since he last picked up a basketball, Williams said he’s ready to move on with life. He doesn’t miss playing that much, just the camaraderie with his teammates.

“I just want to fit in for once,” Williams said. “I don’t want to be the tall guy, I don’t want to be the basketball player who used to go to KU. I just want to fit in. I don’t want people to look at me any different than they would somebody else. I want them to want to hang around me because I’m a nice person, not because of where I went to school at.”

Williams, though, is certainly proud to be a Jayhawk. He knows how far he’s come since first landing at Mount Oread and battling against Scott in practice.  

“I wouldn’t change one thing about it,” Williams said. “I wish I could go back and do it again. I had such a great time.”

 A Closer look at B.J. Williams:

Years at KU: 1993-97

Career Notables: Played in all 136 games for KU... 1996 Big Eight All-Bench team...’96 Clyde Lovellette Most Improved Player Award...Career-High 18 points vs. Arizona on March 22, 1996 in the Sweet 16...Career-best 4.8 ppg in 1996...No. 11 all time at KU in career blocks with 112...Member of three conference championship squads (1995-97)...CBS Player of the Game vs. Indiana on Dec. 10, 1994...CBS Player of the Game vs. Tennessee-Chattanooga on March 17, 1994...CBS Player of the Game vs. Arizona on March 22, 1996.

Family: Williams, who is divorced, has a daughter, Jaiden, 7, and son, Jarrin, 4.

Education: 1997. B.A. Sociology.

Since Leaving KU: Williams played professional basketball overseas until 2001, when he returned home to Wichita. He then worked in a law office, was employed in the pharmacy department for St. Francis Regional Medical Center, and just this past month, accepted a job with the Mental Health Center of south central Kansas.

Currently: Williams is a children’s attendant care worker for the Mental Health Center of south central Kansas.

Hobbies: Watching TV.

Favorite Memories: “I miss mostly the camaraderie and friendship that we had, just the whole family atmosphere. It was great. I miss that probably the most, the kidding around in the locker room, the kidding around in practice, and of course, the games and fans.”...The wrestling matches during road trips. “The best one I think we ever had was C.B. (McGrath) and Jerod (Haase). They were roommates. We moved the bed (in hotel room) out of the way, and they just wrestled. It was hilarious. There were head locks. People getting slammed on the bed and everything. Just everything that was fake in wrestling, they were trying to do. It was funny.” ...Beating UCLA at Lawrence on Dec. 1, 1995 (85-70) and defeating the Bruins at Los Angeles on Dec. 7, 1996 (96-83). “We were down (in Lawrence), and we all rallied together. Just the whole arena rallied behind us. It was one of the greatest things I’ve ever been in, as far as fanfare and us coming together as a team, everyone working for a common bond. We wanted to win. And the game at UCLA was when we actually had their fans booing at them at halftime.”...Beating Oklahoma State at home for the conference championship on March 5, 1995. “It was kind of a frenzied atmosphere. I remember Greg Gurley hitting a three-point shot and getting fouled. Just seeing his facial expression. That game, the atmosphere was unbelievable. It was senior day on top of that. It made it worthwhile just seeing our seniors go out and seeing Greg Gurley’s face after he hit that shot and got fouled.”

On the Jayhawks today: “They get up and down the court a lot faster than we did. I don’t think they play as good as defense as we did. They score a lot more points than we did, and they score in a lot of different ways, too.”