Danny Manning and Larry Brown's "tradeoff" led Jayhawks to national title in 1988

This story talks about a “tradeoff” Danny Manning and KU coach Larry Brown made, which former voice of the Jayhawks Tom Hedrick once told me about. Hedrick said this was a defining moment of the 1988 championship season and led KU to the title. Tom, as nice, genuine and positive a person as you’ll ever meet, always has great stories to share with me. This was one I had never heard, and am very surprised that Manning or his ‘88 teammates have never publicly talked about it. I wrote about this in an article in 2007 regarding a story on Brandon Rush.

I also go into detail about another defining moment that season involving a fight between Manning’s teammates Clint Normore and Mike Masucci in the locker room and Manning failing to break it up, as reported by John Feinstein in his New York Times bestselling 1988 book,  A Season Inside.

...

For Daniel Ricardo Manning, his College Basketball Hall of Fame induction in 2008 was a long time coming since he first arrived on the KU campus in fall of 1984. A great deal had changed since then. He was still the quiet, humble and genuine person he had always been, but now much more confident and at ease with the media.

Manning never asked for fame or adulation. But he’s handled it gracefully his entire basketball career. Not that being the star was ever simple.

“If Danny had his way, he would be able to play the way he does but no one but the other guys (players) would know about it,” his father and then-KU assistant coach Ed Manning told the Washington Post in 1988.

“But that’s not the way life is. Being the best isn’t always easy and it isn’t just playing the game. Danny has to learn that.”

For four years at KU, Brown and Ed Manning pushed him to be the best, to take responsibility for greatness, to live up to his potential, to believe in himself, to become a true leader and dominant player.

The fiery Brown constantly harped and yelled at Manning in practice.

“Danny and Larry probably had pretty much a love, hate relationship,” said Ted Juneau, Manning’s high school coach, one of his best friends, and godfather to his son, Evan.

“Danny’s a pretty sensitive kid, and Larry’s kind of in your face. I think in some ways, that was tough on Danny.”

But like Manning, Brown wanted to be liked. He had a soft side off the hardwood.

“You can be scared of Coach Brown for a while,” Manning told Kansas City Magazine in 1985. “I know I was. But then, you talk to him in his office and you feel like you’re part of his family.

“It’s a special feeling.”

“Special” was a word Brown and other hoops experts used frequently to describe Manning’s game. He was a multidimensional 6-10 forward who could dribble the ball like a point guard, lead the fast break, make wispy passes like Magic Johnson, while kill you in the post with his patented and soft jump hook.

Manning was expected to change the game and revolutionize the forward position.

“He does more than anybody since Bird and Magic,” then-Indiana Pacers scout Tom Newell told Sports Illustrated during Manning’s sophomore year in 1986.

"When he's 24, 25, people will just sit back and marvel at this guy. He's a whole new concept in basketball."

In his first college game against Maryland, Manning showed he could bang with All-American Len Bias and recorded a double-double (12 points and 12 rebounds). Manning finished second on the team in scoring that 1984-85 season at 14.6 points and led the team in rebounding with 7.6 boards per game. He was named Freshman of the Year by Basketball Times and NBC-TV.

As a sophomore, he still didn’t want to step on the toes of KU’s three star seniors — Ron Kellogg, Calvin Thompson and Greg Dreiling — but finally came alive in Big Eight play. Manning averaged 20 points per game in the conference and was selected as a consensus second-team All-American.

His play was making scouts, opposing coaches and writers shake their heads in wonder. The Dallas Morning News wrote this glowing assessment just before Manning played in his first Final Four in March of 1986:

“The game has gotten too good for its own good, one senses. If the sun always shines, then what makes a good day? If everyone can play this game, then where do we find our stars? Thankfully the game has been rescued from its drift toward a conformed excellence. It happens when one attends a Kansas basketball game and beholds an original. It happens when a 6-foot-11, 19-year-old catches the ball, turns towards the basket and shoots. It happens in the basketball world of Danny Manning.”

Unfortunately, in Manning’s worst game of his college career, he scored just four points and fouled out in KU’s loss to Duke in the national semifinals.

Still, it was a magical season for Manning (16.7 ppg, 6.3 rpg), who became the first Jayhawk ever to score more than 1,000 points after his sophomore season.

With Dreiling, Thompson and Kellogg completing their collegiate careers, Manning became KU’s go-to player his junior season, albeit a reluctant star and averaged 23.9 points per game. He was named a consensus first-team All-American and scored 30 points or more nine times, including a career-high 42 versus Southwest Missouri State in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

While KU lost in the Sweet 16 to Georgetown, many Jayhawk fans thought KU could win the national title in Manning’s senior year in 1987-88 with the addition of highly touted junior college transfer Marvin Branch, in addition to talented juco guards Otis Livingston and Lincoln Minor. Basketball Times predicted KU would win it all.

However, Manning’s farewell season began like a nightmare as Kansas struggled with chemistry, injuries and academic problems. KU was 12-8 and seemed headed towards the NIT instead of a national championship. 

Manning and the Jayhawks made a remarkable turnaround with the insertion of sophomore guard Jeff Gueldner in the starting lineup at shooting guard and Kevin Pritchard at point guard after Livingston and Minor didn’t cut it at the point. After losing four straight in late January and early February, KU won nine of its next 11 games entering the NCAA Tournament. 

But the defining moment in KU’s road to the national championship truly happened when former voice of the Jayhawks Tom Hedrick saw Manning at a barbershop in Lawrence on Feb. 1, 1988.

 “Danny didn’t go to the hole until the last 10 games of his senior year,” Hedrick told me. “He did that with a tradeoff. The Jayhawks were 12-8 and 1-5 (1-4) in the conference, and I only said two things to him. I said, ‘How are you coming?’ He said, ‘I can’t wait for the season to end.’ I started to laugh. Then I said, ‘Does it bother Kevin Pritchard that Larry Brown yells at him a lot?’ He said, ‘It bothers him a lot. But I’m going to take care of that.’ So he went to see coach Brown that afternoon and made a tradeoff. He said, ‘OK coach, you quit yelling at Kevin and I’ll go to the hole. I’ll score more. That’s what you want. This is what I want.’ That’s again what a team leader Danny Manning was. Well, it made them a championship team.”

Hedrick calls Manning and Jo Jo White the “two best team players I ever saw here (KU).”  He said Manning put the team first when he had that pivotal conversation with Brown.

Manning could be dominant, but Brown wanted more. After Manning burned Iowa State for 39 points in KU’s 82-72 victory at Allen Fieldhouse on Feb. 13, 1988, the perfectionist Brown wasn’t exactly satisfied.

“A great player would have had 50,” Brown said.

 

John Feinstein, the New York Times bestselling author of his 1988 book, A Season Inside, had full access to Manning and the KU basketball program during the 1987-88 season. He either didn’t know about the “tradeoff” between Manning and Brown regarding Pritchard, or ignorantly failed to mention it.

However, Feinstein wrote about another defining moment that season, which happened when Brown became “furious” at Manning for failing to break up a fight with punches thrown in the locker room after practice between teammates Clint Normore and Mike Masucci, a rumble which came before KU’s crucial 64-63 victory at Kansas State on Feb. 18.

Feinstein wrote that Brown “felt he should have broken the fight up, that his sitting by and just being one of the guys was exactly the reason why he had never become the leader Brown insisted he had to be.”

“You are not one of the guys!” Brown screamed at Manning in his office. “How many godamm times do I have to tell you that?!”

Manning had, indeed, heard that stern message from Brown many times, but the KU coach’s mood soon mellowed as he emotionally talked to Manning about David Thompson, his superstar player when he coached him with the Denver Nuggets.

“He never wanted the responsibility of being the best player,” Brown said. “David wanted to be one of the guys and people protected him. They made things easy for him. Whatever David wanted, he got. Everyone wanted to keep David happy.”

Thompson, who Feinstein wrote that “many who saw him play at North Carolina State still insist that ... (he was) the most gifted basketball player ever, “became a cocaine addict, hurt a knee, and was out of basketball before he turned thirty.”

Feinstein continued: “Brown wasn’t really trying to tell Manning that he was going to end up like David Thompson. The analogy went only so far as the refusal to take responsibility for being the best player."

“The best player has to be the leader, Danny,” Brown said. “It isn’t a matter of choice. By the time you’ve been in the NBA for two years, you’re going to have to be the leader. You won’t have any choice.”

Feinstein reported that “Manning and Brown talked for a while that day. Brown told him not to worry about his statistics, that if he was only the second player chosen in the NBA draft instead of the first he would still be a very wealthy young man. Manning told Brown that he thought a little less yelling would be positive for the team. Each listened to each other. When it was over, each felt better.”

“I’ll tell you what, Danny,” Brown said. “I don’t want to yell so much. You get on the guys sometimes when they mess up in practice and I won’t have to do it. Do it your own way, but do it.”

Manning heeded Brown’s call after that conversation and the one about the “tradeoff” regarding Pritchard. The KU star refused to let his team lose. When the Jayhawks entered the Big Dance, Manning and his teammates were on a mission with help and divine guidance from Fellowship of Christian Athletes president John Erickson.

“We had different people come speak to our team throughout the year,” Manning said. “Coach Erickson would speak (and) coined a little motto for us, ‘Life by an inch is a cinch. Life by the yard is hard.’ That is kind of what we took in the tournament. 

“Survive and advance.”

The Jayhawks kept advancing with Manning leading KU to victories over Xavier, Murray State, Vanderbilt, Kansas State, Duke, and then Oklahoma in the national championship game. Manning averaged 27.2 points during that magical six-game run and finally became the true leader Brown always envisioned.

Brown couldn’t have been more thrilled with Manning’s evolution.

“Danny was a skinny kid the last time we played in the Final Four,” Brown said after the championship game. “He was a man tonight.”

Of course, Manning has great memories of his college swan song against OU, when he had one of the best national title games in history with 31 points and a career-high 18 rebounds. But he has even fonder memories of what transpired afterwards.

“It was just sitting in the locker room and enjoying each other’s company knowing for us seniors it was going to be the last time we were going to be able to hang out with these guys,” Manning said. “You know, give each other a hard time just one last time. That was the best part of the championship for me. It was a good time and a great run for us.”

Aside from the national title, Manning said not one game in particular stands out from his college career.

“I just remember running out from the tunnel,” he said about Allen Fieldhouse. “That’s probably the biggest thing that sticks out, the chills you got and how excited you were to play in the fieldhouse.”

Recalling Danny Manning's College Basketball Hall of Fame induction

These have certainly been better days for Jayhawk legend Danny Manning. He was fired as head coach in April by Wake Forest after three straight losing seasons and compiling a dismal 78–111 (.413) record in six years, including a more woeful 30-80 (.273) record in ACC play. This was not the plan Manning, AD Ron Wellman, who hired him, and all Wake fans envisioned when he began his tenure in Winston Salem in 2014 after leading Tulsa to its first NCAA Tournament that year since 2003. Manning guided the Golden Hurricane to a 21-13 record, including a 13-3 mark in Conference USA (tied for regular-season title), and then capturing the C-USA postseason tournament.

But the ACC proved to be too mighty for Manning to handle, and he suffered with many transfers and players who opted to pursue professional careers. He had only one winning season at Wake in 2016-17, posting a 19-14 record and an NCAA Tournament berth with future NBA lottery pick John Collins, where the Demon Deacons lost in the First Four to K-State.

Manning, who reportedly received a 15M buyout from Wake, will likely land on his feet again and receive another head-coaching job, although it might be at low-major school. He developed a reputation as KU assistant coach as arguably the best-big man coach in the college game, helping send countless Jayhawks into the NBA, including the Morris twins, Darrell Arthur, Cole Aldrich and Jeff Withey.

This fact, along with winning at Tulsa, might be enough for some college to take a chance on Manning again or for an NBA team to hire him as an assistant.

In this three-part series, here’s a look back on better fortunes for Manning, as I write about my high school classmate's induction into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008 and his college and NBA career.

...

Danny Manning once said the four players in basketball history he’d most like to play with were Elgin Baylor, Earl Monroe, Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson.

Those four are among the all-time hoops greats and enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

When Manning was just a freshman at the University of Kansas in 1985, KU coach Larry Brown destined his prodigy for immortality and an indelible place reserved with the legends like Russell and Baylor in Springfield.

“This kid has a chance to be thought of in light of the best when his career is over,” Brown said. “He is the most complete young player I’ve ever seen. He is unlike any player I’ve ever been around. 

 

“He’ll be the best.”

Thirty-five years later, Manning is not considered “the best” or one of the all-time NBA greats. Three ACL injuries in the pros robbed him of stardom, yet he still had an impressive 15-year career, finishing with 12,367 points, 4,615 rebounds, 2,063 assists, 1,000 steals and 753 blocks. Manning was a two-time All-Star (1993 and ‘94) and won the NBA Sixth Man Award with the Phoenix Suns in 1998 before retiring in 2003 with the Detroit Pistons.

On the collegiate level, though, Manning had few peers. The Sporting News ranked Manning the 12th best college player of all time in 2002 in Mike DeCourcy’s book, Legends of College Basketball,while in Dick Vitale’s 2008 book, Fabulous 50 Players and Moments in College Basketball, the celebrated announcer pegged Manning as the fifth-best player during his 30 years of covering college basketball for ESPN.

The 12th all-time leading scorer in NCAA history (2,951 points), Manning was a two-time All-American and the consensus National Player of the Year in 1988. He led KU to the Final Four in 1986 and national title in '88 while named Most Outstanding Player. Manning was later named the Big Eight Player of the Decade.

So how fitting and deserving that this Jayhawk legend be honored at Sprint Center in Kansas City in 2008 with his induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

...

Twenty years after leading KU to one of its greatest moments in school history in Kemper Arena with a commanding 31 point, 18-rebound performance against Oklahoma in the national title game, Manning was back home in Kansas City to receive college basketball’s greatest individual honor.

KU coach Bill Self had the privilege of introducing Manning for induction that memorable evening. 

Self called “Coach Danny Manning one of the greatest ambassadors the University of Kansas has ever known.” 

He recalled Manning burning his Oklahoma State Cowboys for 35 points as a freshman in 1985 with Self playing the back of the two-three zone, and how he used to “towel him off and fetch water for him” as a KU graduate assistant in 1985-86.

“Everybody talks about Danny and the Miracles and him going for 31 and 18 in the national championship game and how he put that team on his back,” Self said. “That totally embarrasses Danny. Danny is so proud of his teammates, so proud of the contributions of everybody. He’s very humble, deflects praise.”

Dazzling highlights of Manning’s college career soon showed on the big screen before Self announced: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Kansas’ finest, Danny Manning.”

The crowd gave a roaring ovation as Self put a Hall of Fame medal around Manning’s neck. Manning walked over to emcees Dan Shulman and Seth Davis and took a seat on the stage.

Shulman praised Manning immediately.

“Danny, I think when this Hall of Fame came into being and people thought of the kind of place this Hall of Fame was meant for,” Shulman said, “you were the first guy people thought of, because if you had not had injuries, we all know how differently things could have been on the pro level.

“But on the collegiate level, you were the first guy (on everybody’s minds).”

Manning was humbled by the love.

 “I had a lot of wonderful people in my life pushing me, my parents and my high school coach, my family,” he said. “I got some teammates sitting up there and I’m glad they’re here. I’m just very fortunate and very blessed to be in this situation.”

Two months before his induction, the selfless Manning first told me he could not accomplish this great honor alone.

“I’m honored, privileged, humbled,” Manning said. “I had a chance to play for a great coach (Brown). We had wonderful staffs. I played in front of the best fans in the country. I had the best teammates anyone could ask for. I received a lot of attention, but my teammates were the guys that put me in position to do what I what I could do. They were very unselfish in their thoughts and their actions. I just want them to know that I appreciate all their efforts and all the battles that we’ve gone through.

“This is something that hopefully we can all cherish together.”

Evaluating former Jayhawk great Darnell Valentine’s NBA legacy

Darnell Valentine was hailed for greatness early in his basketball career. Before his high school senior year, Five-Star director and basketball guru Howard Garfinkel simply said Valentine was the best guard he had ever seen in the camp history, even superior to stars Phil Sellers (Rutgers) and Butch Lee (Marquette).

The hosannas and rave reviews kept coming at Kansas, where he became a second-team All-American his senior year. Boston Celtics president Red Auerbach scouted Valentine during his sophomore year and thought he’d be a great pro, maybe even better than former KU and Celtic great Jo Jo White, who is enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame.

“Valentine is quicker than Jo Jo and he penetrates better,” Auerbach gushed to The Sporting News.

My dad and I, who were huge fans of D.V., were hoping Valentine could have an NBA career like White as soon as he was drafted with the No. 16 overall pick in the first round by the Portland Trail Blazers.

Blazers coach Jack Ramsay even thought Valentine was destined for stardom after his rookie season in 1982.

“Darnell Valentine may be the best point guard in the NBA, you’ll see,” Ramsay told Sports Illustrated.

Sadly, it never happened.

Valentine played well for Portland during his first four and half seasons, assuming the starting role in his second year. But Valentine’s skills didn’t ideally fit Ramsay’s extremely structured offense. Valentine didn’t have much freedom and Portland didn’t run the fast break enough, which was Valentine’s specialty.

He was also a below average outside shooter, although he could knock down the open jumper. Valentine, too, was not a great ballhandler, despite being a point guard, something then-KU coach Larry Brown talked about on his radio show.

But he was very quick with the ball and at his best penetrating the lane and either scoring a layup in traffic over big men or dishing to a teammate for an easy bucket.

And there were few better defensive guards than Valentine and any players who worked harder.

“He was a warrior,” Larry Drew told me years ago, who played against D.V. at Missouri and in the NBA, while also teammates with the Los Angeles Clippers.

"He's a fierce competitor," Ramsay added. “He never stops. He's never going to be outplayed."

Valentine was devoted to the game and also played selflessly in the pros, unlike at KU where he thought me-first and hurt the team at times by trying to do too much.

This all changed in the NBA, when Valentine likely had the revelation that he was no longer the best player on the team, and to have a long and successful career, he had to blend in as a role player, pass the ball and get his teammates involved like Jim Paxson, Calvin Natt, Mychal Thompson and later Clyde Drexler and Kiki Vandeweghe.

Ramsay paid Valentine the ultimate compliment when he said he “was perhaps the most self-disciplined player I ever dealt with ... (and) one of the best team players I ever coached.”

High praise, indeed, from the Hall of Fame coach.

Valentine had a rough break after four and half seasons with Portland when he played in obscurity for the futile Clippers for two and a half years before moving to Cleveland to finish his career. When he first became a Cav in 1988-89, I remember reading that Valentine — who was always known to have a big ego — said that he had never been around a guard and teammate in Mark Price who was so much better than him.

At that time, Valentine was in the twilight of his career, while Price made his first All-Star team in his third year. Price starred with averages of 18.9 points and 8.4 assists per game, while shooting 52.6 percent from the field and a scorching 44.1 percent from beyond the arc and 90.1 percent at the charity stripe.

Price’s career 40.2 percent marksmanship from three-point range ranks No. 37 all time, while his 6.7 assists per game ranks No. 30. Price was the far superior shooter to Valentine and also a better ballhandler. However, Valentine was quicker than Price, better at stealing the ball, and a more complete defensive player.

While he was no Mark Price and certainly no Jo Jo White — make no mistake — Valentine still had a solid NBA career during his nine seasons. To me, he ranks as the third-best former Jayhawk guard with the top NBA career behind White and Kirk Hinrich and the No. 11th-best former Jayhawk with the top NBA career overall (not countng current Jayhawks in the pros).

The 6-1 guard boasts career averages of 8.7 points (5,400), 5.0 assists (3,080), 2.1 rebounds (1,318), 1.5 steals (910), and 23.2 minutes in 620 games (345 starts). He shot 43.7 percent from the field, 26.1 percent from three-point range, and 78.7 percent at the free throw line. He always elevated his game in the playoffs with career averages during four postseasons of 12.0 points, 6.8 assists, 1.5 steals, 1.9 rebounds in 27.2 minutes per game over 26 contests. 

He shot 46.0 percent from the field, 50.0 percent from beyond the arc, and a sizzling 88.4 percent at the free throw line. His finest playoff performance came in 1984 in a five-game series loss to Phoenix in the first round, when Valentine starred with 18.4 points and 8.4 assists while shooting 50 percent from the field and and a blistering 91.4 percent at the free throw line in 35.6 minutes per game. He exploded for a game-high 29 points in a Game 3 loss to Phoenix and recorded 15 assists (tied for team playoff record) in a Game 2 loss to the Lakers in 1983. Valentine ranks No. 5  in Blazers history for career assists (161).

During the regular season, the former KU All-American scored a career-high 30 points versus Houston during the 1987-88 season with the Clippers, dished out a career-best 15 assists three times, had three games with eight steals, and four games with eight rebounds. He also posted a career-high 50 minutes in a triple overtime loss to Phoenix on Nov. 1, 1984 with the Blazers.

A tenacious defender with extremely quick feet and hands, Valentine ranks No. 90 all time in the NBA with 1.5 steals per game. He ranked No. 9 in the league in steals per game (1.9) during 1984-85 and No. 13 in total steals (143) that year. He also ranked No. 20 in total steals (122) in 1986-87. Valentine ranked in the top 20 in steal percentage during five seasons, including a career-best 3.6 (No. 5) in 1987-88.

Unlike at KU, he always thought pass first in the pros, ranking No. 15 in assists per game (7.0) during 1984-85 and No. 18 in total assists (522) that year. He ranked No. 17 in the NBA with 6.9 assists per game in 1986-87 and No. 20 in total assists (447) that season. He had three seasons where he ranked in the top 20 in assist percentage, including a career-best 37.3 (No. 6) in 1986-87.

I asked Valentine before his jersey retirement in Allen Fieldhouse on Jan. 1, 2005 how he felt about his NBA career. He was quite candid and didn’t seem to have regrets.

“I think it could have possibly been better, and it could have possibly been a lot worse,” Valentine replied. “I’m just thankful that it was what it was. I think I had some tough breaks. ... I’m proud of what I was able to accomplish.”

No, he never became an All-Star or averaged even 9.0 points per game over his career (career-high 12.5 ppg his second season), but Valentine made his mark with his outstanding defense and fierce work ethic, endearing himself to his coaches, teammates, and fans.

Lafayette Norwood, his close friend, mentor, high school coach and assistant at KU, thought Valentine caught a tough break by not catching on with the Chicago Bulls. Norwood actually told me several years ago that Chicago signed him to an offer sheet while Valentine was with the Clippers before the Clips matched it. But it was actually New Jersey which made the offer before the 1986-87 season. The Bulls, however, nearly traded for Valentine from Portland before the 1985-86 season, but the deal never happened.

“I thought that was the turning point in his life,” said Norwood, who added the Bulls didn’t have a point guard at the time. “I thought if the Bulls could have got him, he could have been able to experience some things I thought we had in mind at the beginning of his career. Chicago was in the process of beginning to evolve as far as being a championship final team. If he could have gone to Chicago, obviously with Michael (Jordan), he could have made that happen and become a critical (part to their success).”

As I wrote in a previous blog on D.V., Norwood thought Valentine could have elevated Jordan and his Bulls’ teammates’ games with his defense and become one of the best NBA point guards.

Still, like Valentine, Norwood was quite proud of what he was “able to accomplish” in the NBA.

“Oh, he had a great career,” Norwood said.