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.”
No comments:
Post a Comment