The 1989-90 KU basketball team was a very memorable one, entering the season unranked and picked last in the Big Eight in two preseason publications, to winning the preseason NIT and bouncing in and out of the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the national polls for 13 consecutive weeks.
I’ve followed KU basketball since 1973 when I had season tickets with my dad until I covered the program for 20 years starting in 1998. I can say, without a doubt, this 1989-90 team was by far the best passing KU team I have ever seen. They cut up opponents with their crisp passing and screens, scoring countless back-door layups.
“We probably set the world record for back-door layups on that team,” Kevin Pritchard, a senior point guard and team leader on that squad, told me in a 2000 interview.
And they had talent. Pritchard, Rick Calloway, Adonis Jordan and Mark Randall all had stints in the NBA. Randall, who played on the 1991 Final Four team which lost to Duke in the national championship game, can certainly attest to that.
“Talent wise, that was the best team I played on,” Randall said of his three years with KU coach Roy Williams.
In just his second year as KU head coach, Williams emerged as one of the best coaches and one of the most brilliant coaching minds in America. He was named National Coach of the Year by USBWA and Molten/Billy Packer, while selected as AP and UPI Big Eight Coach of the Year.
“As the architect of (Kansas’) success, Williams is starting to receive accolades proclaiming him to be one the country’s most talented young coaches, said Clifton Brown of the New York Times. “He is not comfortable with that image, but if he keeps winning, he will have to get used to it.”
Williams’ 1990 team was a pure joy to watch play. John Wooden, the legendary former UCLA coach, said during that memorable season that Kansas played the game the right way. And other basketball observers certainly agreed.
“John Rhode, columnist with the Daily Oklahoman, wrote “it’s a joy to watch Kansas play basketball. The Jayhawks bring back the days of UCLA (no, they’re not THAT good).”
No, the Jayhawks certainly weren’t as good as Wooden’s great Bruins’ teams, but KU left its mark that year as the second-winningest team in school history. It was also a very unselfish team. Four players -- a school record -- recorded more than 100 assists. Kansas also finished with the highest field percentage (53.3) in the country. The ‘Hawks set a school record with averaging 92.0 points per game and beat its foes by an average of nearly 20 points per contest.
In a 150-95 blowout over Kentucky on Dec. 9, 1989, KU broke or tied six school records, including most points, most points in one half (80), and most assists (36).
While KU’s season came to an abrupt end with an NCAA second-round loss to UCLA (71-70) in Atlanta, that team will never be forgotten.
Randall, who was working as a Denver Nuggets scout at the time I interviewed him in 2000, spoke about that team’s legacy.
“The comments I get from not only alumni, but also people who are my colleagues now, that’s their memory of Kansas basketball and of Mark Randall and Kansas basketball — the team that we had that went through the NIT and beat all the teams...and bounced in and out of the No. 1 and 2 spot all year,” Randall said. “That team was obviously special.”
Indeed, it most certainly was.
Here is the 10-year anniversary story I wrote on that team in 2000 for Jayhawk Insider.
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By David Garfield
It’s been 10 years and four months, but Kevin Pritchard recalls the incident as if was yesterday.
The 1989-90 Jayhawks, who had just shocked Shaquille O’ Neal and No. 2 LSU (Kansas second- year coach Roy Williams later said that was the “first big-time win” of his coaching career) in the second round of the preseason NIT on Nov. 17, arrived in New York for a matchup with top-ranked UNLV. As guests of the tournament at a banquet at Tavern On The Green, Williams was prepared to make a brief speech about his team.
And then the unthinkable happened. The master of ceremonies introduced the KU mentor as Ron Williams.
“I remember the team looking around and we were VERY angry,” said Pritchard, the point guard and senior leader that season. “We definitely from then out said, ‘Maybe we don’t need any motivation, but thank you very much.’ We took that very personal. They can’t even get our coach’s name right. I love coach Williams and I loved everyone on that team, so when that happens, it’s like someone calling your best buddy or girlfriend a bad name. You tend to get a little angry about that.”
Pritchard (now the assistant vice president of The Trust Company of Kansas) and his teammates responded by taking their anger out against the No. 1 mighty Rebels (eventual NCAA champions). KU won easily, 91-77, on Nov. 22, and then beat St. John’s two days later to “spoil the party” and win the NIT tournament. In the waning seconds of the championship game, Pritchard had a few words for announcer Dick Vitale:
“It was something like, ‘Maybe now we’ll get some respect.’ Of course, he was like (before the UNLV game) ‘Kansas shouldn’t be here, but they’re here and they’re going to bow out early, and it’s going to be UNLV and St. John’s in the finals.’”
After winning the NIT, Kansas had suddenly gone from being Rodney Dangerfield to the talk of the basketball world. The Dec. 3, 1989 issue of Sports Illustrated featured KU and a picture of Mark Randall (NIT MVP) floating gracefully through the air for a layup against two helpless UNLV defenders. The headline on page 32 read:
“The Jayhawks Take Flight: By stunningly upsetting No. 1 UNLV and No. 2 LSU and winning the NIT, unflappable Kansas poleaxed the pollsters.”
For Randall (he averaged 13.3 ppg and 6.2 rebounds during the year) and KU, it was a perfect beginning for one of the most memorable and successful seasons at Mount Oread. Unranked Kansas jumped to No. 4 in the polls and won its first 19 games of the season. The Jayhawks, who were actually ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in the polls for 13 consecutive weeks, concluded the year at 30-5 (second winningest team at the time in school history).
This was definitely not a season Inside Sports and Basketball Digest had predicted. The two publications actually picked Kansas to finish last in the Big Eight conference.
“We didn’t pin it up or anything like that,” Pritchard said of the Inside Sports clipping. “But everyone was aware of it. It kind of circulated from locker to locker, and we knew that the so called quote-un-quote media didn’t think too highly of us.”
The Jayhawks believed in themselves from day one. With an experienced cast led by Pritchard and three other seniors (Freeman West, Rick Calloway, and Jeff Gueldner), not to mention rising junior stars Randall and Mike Maddox, as well as newcomers “Downtown” Terry Brown, Pekka Markkanen, and freshman Adonis Jordan, KU wound up the season leading the country in field goal percentage (53.3 percent) and breaking several school scoring records, including eight 100-point games and most points in a single game. Kansas also won at Iowa State for the first time since 1983.
While KU didn’t have the raw talent like Vegas or LSU, four Jayhawks eventually had stints in the NBA (Randall, Calloway, Pritchard and Jordan).
“Talent wise, that was the best team I played on,” Randall said of his three years with Williams.
Williams, who established himself as one of the premier coaches in the country in just his second season at KU (he was Big Eight and national coach of the year), believed KU maximized its talent each game.
“I’ve been around basketball many years and I can’t ever remember a team that played to its potential as well as last year’s team did,” Williams said at the beginning of the 1990-91 season. “It was a fun group to watch. You had to admire how unselfish they played.”
The chemistry was superb. The Jayhawks, who had five players in double figures (Pritchard led the squad at 14.5 ppg), often resembled a team of poetry in motion, cutting and dicing opponents up with screens, pin-point passes and back-door layups.
“The most unique thing about that team was that we were all good passers and good shooters, even the big guys,” Pritchard said. “When we ran our motion offense, we felt we were unstoppable. We didn’t out-athletic anybody. We just knew how to play basketball. We were kind of the old Hoosier type of basketball team. Any time you relaxed at all, we knew we were going to get an easy shot. We were so confident in each other. When a team played zone, we knew exactly how to beat a zone. When a team pressured man to man....we probably set the world record for back-door layups on that team.”
Much of that credits belongs to Maddox and Randall — two key big men who defenders had to cover on the perimeter. They also worked the high-low passing game to perfection.
“Mark and I developed a real feel for each other, and really took the offense and kind of adapted it to our own games,” said Maddox, KU’s Super Sub (8.7 ppg) and now the new community president for Intrust Bank in Lawrence. “I probably went to the high post 70 percent of the time, and he went to the low post. ... I was a decent high outside shooter, and Mark was good down on the block. It was hard for defenses to defend both of us.”
Defenses like Kentucky had plenty of problems stopping Kansas the whole season. KU set a school record for points scored in its blowout victory over the Wildcats (150-95) on Dec. 9, 1989. Brown came off the bench and led KU with 31 points.
“Paying Kentucky was pretty fun,” Pritchard said. “I remember they pressed us the whole game. They pressed with guys (talent-wise) that probably didn’t need to be pressing. We knew we were such a good passing team and ball-handling team that every time they pressed us, ‘OK, here’s a layup, or let’s get a three-pointer.’ We like dictated what we wanted.”
After winning 19 straight games and climbing to No. 1 in the polls, KU suffered its first loss of the season at No. 4 ranked Missouri (95-87) on Jan. 25. Kansas, which won its next five games and regained the No. 1 ranking over the Tigers, lost again to MU (77-71) at home on Feb. 13.
“There were some wars,” Maddox said.
Then, after three more consecutive wins, KU was blown out by No. 3 ranked Oklahoma at Norman (100-78). Two games later in the second round of the Big Eight tournament, Kansas fell once more to the Sooners (95-77). While KU still gained a No. 2 seed in the East Regional in Atlanta, fatigue had taken its toll. KU barely got by Robert Morris (77-71) in the first round, and then ended its season with a devastating loss to UCLA (71-70) on March 18.
“OU and MU were awfully good,” Maddox said. “We had five pretty good losses to good teams. We didn’t get beat by any patsies. ... We just were physically worn out. We just ran out of gas that year. I’ve talked to several of the guys, and I just remember we were tired. It was a long season. We had a long preseason.”
Pritchard agreed: “We pushed ourselves so hard. No one wanted to say, ‘Hey we need to rest,’ so we didn’t. It was a team so self motivated. We all had something to prove very single day in practice. No one let up, and if you did, there were six other guys on the team that would say, ‘What are you doing? We got to play harder.’”
And then there was the pressure. As the wins mounted, so did the expectations from the media and loyal crimson and blue followers.
“I think there was so much pride that when we put on the Jayhawk uniform, we felt like we represented so many things — our family, ourselves, and more importantly, everybody who believed in us when nobody believed,” Pritchard said. “We didn’t want to let anyone down.”
Pritchard, who started at point guard on KU’s 1988 championship team, said the 1990 squad went into the tournament with a completely different attitude.
“In ‘88, we’re like, ‘All right. We’re here. Let’s try to play well.’ In ‘90, it was like, ‘We got to get this done. This was something we got to do for our fans again.’ That’s the difference between winning and losing.”
But Pritchard adds, he enjoyed that year even more than the 1988 championship season.
“It’s amazing when no one cares nothing but winning,” he said. “There was just a lot of leadership on that team, more than any other team I’ve ever been on — NBA or anything. In that locker room, you didn’t have to get on people very hard. They’d know what they were supposed to do. If they did something wrong, it came to a point where a look would be all it would take. It resolved itself.”
The consummate team player, Pritchard was also one of the most fiery competitors and clutch shooters in Jayhawk history. The senior leader admits now that he felt a personal responsibility in KU’s final loss to UCLA. While he doesn’t have nightmares about the game, he says the final seconds “does enter my thoughts.”
“It was the hardest loss I’ve ever had to take,” said Pritchard, who was first-team All-Big Eight that year. “I’m the kind of person who likes to take the last shot. I still replay it in my mind to this day. They double teamed me on the in-bounds and I should have tried harder to get the ball. I’m not saying I would have made it I just would have liked that opportunity.”
Calloway ended up with the ball and missing a baseline 15 footer.
“He took a great shot,” Pritchard said. “It was just a little short.”
Former UCLA coaching wizard John Wooden certainly observed the game very closely. He said during the year that KU was a joy to watch and played the game the way it’s supposed to be played.
These words definitely did not go unnoticed by Maddox and company.
“It makes you feel great to get that kind of compliment from such a great coach and a great basketball mind,” Maddox said. “You can’t get a higher compliment. And I think we did do it the right way. We were very efficient, and we executed well offensively. We were a really good defensive team. I would put that team up defensively against any team KU’s had. We really got after people.”
And the people in Kansas adored Williams’ Jayhawks. One elderly lady from Wichita called the KU coach’s Hawk Talk radio show just before the Big Eight tournament in March, 1990 and gushed:
“I just want to say that we got a real gem when you accepted the position. I think you are super, and an excellent role model for the players and students. You just never cease to amaze me these things I read about you. You’re way up on the pedestal, and I don’t think you’re ever going to fall,” she said fighting back the tears.
Williams never has. Not only did this “unknown” coach, once referred to as Ron Williams 10 years ago, put his signature on Kansas basketball (KU wound up as the winningest team in the 1990s), his 1989-90 squad left a lasting legacy for Jayhawk fans and basketball aficionados alike.
Just ask Randall, who travels the country as a scout for the Denver Nuggets.
“As I go from city to city, it’s amazing how many Kansas alumni are out there,” Randall said. “Kansas people are very knowledgeable about basketball and they’re very fanatical about it. I’m still recognized when I go from state to state as a Kansas alum. ... The comments I get from not only alumni, but also people who are my colleagues now, that’s their memory of Kansas basketball and of Mark Randall and Kansas basketball — the team that we had that went through the NIT and beat all the teams...and bounced in and out of the No. 1 and 2 spot all year. That team was obviously special.”
More about the 1989-90 team from Kevin Pritchard:
On Jeff Gueldner (10.7 ppg/ 48.6 percent 3-pointers), the sharp shooting senior. “He was really hurt most of 88-89. He had some back problems and didn’t play a whole lot. He is a great player, obviously. He started on the national championship team. He was healthy the whole year (89-90).”
On Adonis Jordan (3.0 ppg), the freshman point guard from Reseda, Calif. “He really learned the system very quickly.”
On Rick Calloway (13.1 ppg), the senior transfer from Indiana who sat out the 1988-89 season. “He was a great defender, a great team player.”
On Pekka Markkanen (6.9 ppg), the 6-10 center whom Roy Williams recruited from Finland without ever seeing him play in person (scouted him on videotape). “He was a big plus, because we were without a big man — a center.”
On Freeman West (6.0 ppg/59.5 FG percentage), the senior forward from Paris Junior College in Texas. “He was fantastic. He was 6-5 and played inside. And I’ll tell you what, I’d put him up against any 6-5 guy in the United States. He was strong, athletic, knew his role and did it very well. He was another workmanlike player.”
