KU?s streak formula was simple: Better teams and players
Roy Williams was in his third year at Kansas when asked about the Jayhawks? seven-game winning streak at Kansas State.
?Are you sure about that?? Williams said. ?That?s amazing. You know you?re going to lose, you just don?t know when.?
Seventeen years later, Kansas tips off in Manhattan tonight without having mourned in the visitor?s locker room, a most remarkable 24-game winning streak that lives for the most uncomplicated of reasons.
Kansas fielded the better team and suited up the best player nearly every year.
?There?s a reason that streak is the way it is,? Kansas State coach Frank Martin said. ?They?re that good. We?re trying to get good enough to compete with them.?
But over the last quarter century, the Jayhawks have fallen to worse teams away from Lawrence, non-NCAA Tournament teams, sub-.500 teams.
At one time during this streak, Kansas State won four of seven, but those victories came in Lawrence and Kansas City. Shouldn?t the law of averages have given the Cats just one of these before the home folk?
You?d think. Even with Kansas? overall record being better than its state rival in 23 of the seasons and conference record better in 22.
But no. In this series, talent has done all the talking, making tonight?s contest the most anticipated in Manhattan since Darnell Valentine guarded Rolando Blackman.
For the first time in decades, the best player in the game will be introduced with the home team. Freshman forward Michael Beasley is No. 1 draft pick, national-player-of-the-year good, and it has taken a person of that caliber to inject real hope that fortune will smile on the Cats at Bramlage. He even talks a good game.
A brash Beasley has said K-State would beat Kansas in Manhattan or anywhere on the globe, and Martin doesn?t have a problem with his star?s confidence.
?It?s what he believes. What am I supposed to do? You guys got mad at me when I put the muzzle on him,? Martin said. ?Now he?s honest with you and tells you the truth, and you try and get me to go against him? It?s what he believes. He came here with a vision of competing for a championship, just like me.?
Martin?s right. Beasley didn?t rip the second-ranked Jayhawks. He just expressed confidence in his own team and made a great sound bite. Nothing else to see here folks, move along.
In Beasley, Kansas State owns an advantage that has exclusively belonged to Kansas. From Danny Manning to Rex Walters, Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce, Drew Gooden, Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison and Brandon Rush, the Jayhawks presented the matchup problem.
That?s a partial list of the 16 Kansas players named first-team all-conference 28 times since 1984. Four K-State players have been named five times, and none in the Big 12 era.
Since the streak, the Jayhawks have played in six Final Fours and won 13 conference crowns. Zero and zero for K-State.
Ironically and sadly for K-State, the Wildcats fielded their best squad of the last quarter century in 1988. Mitch Richmond was a senior, Steve Henson a sophomore. K-State won 25 games, finished second in the Big Eight and is remembered mostly for losing the regional final to Kansas.
By then, the Jayhawks? rebirth as a national program was underway, and the Wildcats would begin to fade. A generation of fans has grown up recognizing Kansas State as a football-first school. They need their parents or grandparents to remind them of basketball?s glory days, when the likes of famed coaches Jack Gardner, Tex Winter, Cotton Fitzsimmons, Jack Hartman and Lon Kruger kept the program at or near the top of the conference for nearly four decades.
Tonight, it feels like it used to, or so people with more than a 20-year interest in the programs tell me. Because of Beasley, Kansas at Kansas State is anybody?s game, and if the Wildcats pull it out, they can draw the line and say nobody comes into Manhattan and wins 25 in a row.:mj07: GO JAYHAWKS!!!:00hour
Roy Williams was in his third year at Kansas when asked about the Jayhawks? seven-game winning streak at Kansas State.
?Are you sure about that?? Williams said. ?That?s amazing. You know you?re going to lose, you just don?t know when.?
Seventeen years later, Kansas tips off in Manhattan tonight without having mourned in the visitor?s locker room, a most remarkable 24-game winning streak that lives for the most uncomplicated of reasons.
Kansas fielded the better team and suited up the best player nearly every year.
?There?s a reason that streak is the way it is,? Kansas State coach Frank Martin said. ?They?re that good. We?re trying to get good enough to compete with them.?
But over the last quarter century, the Jayhawks have fallen to worse teams away from Lawrence, non-NCAA Tournament teams, sub-.500 teams.
At one time during this streak, Kansas State won four of seven, but those victories came in Lawrence and Kansas City. Shouldn?t the law of averages have given the Cats just one of these before the home folk?
You?d think. Even with Kansas? overall record being better than its state rival in 23 of the seasons and conference record better in 22.
But no. In this series, talent has done all the talking, making tonight?s contest the most anticipated in Manhattan since Darnell Valentine guarded Rolando Blackman.
For the first time in decades, the best player in the game will be introduced with the home team. Freshman forward Michael Beasley is No. 1 draft pick, national-player-of-the-year good, and it has taken a person of that caliber to inject real hope that fortune will smile on the Cats at Bramlage. He even talks a good game.
A brash Beasley has said K-State would beat Kansas in Manhattan or anywhere on the globe, and Martin doesn?t have a problem with his star?s confidence.
?It?s what he believes. What am I supposed to do? You guys got mad at me when I put the muzzle on him,? Martin said. ?Now he?s honest with you and tells you the truth, and you try and get me to go against him? It?s what he believes. He came here with a vision of competing for a championship, just like me.?
Martin?s right. Beasley didn?t rip the second-ranked Jayhawks. He just expressed confidence in his own team and made a great sound bite. Nothing else to see here folks, move along.
In Beasley, Kansas State owns an advantage that has exclusively belonged to Kansas. From Danny Manning to Rex Walters, Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce, Drew Gooden, Kirk Hinrich, Nick Collison and Brandon Rush, the Jayhawks presented the matchup problem.
That?s a partial list of the 16 Kansas players named first-team all-conference 28 times since 1984. Four K-State players have been named five times, and none in the Big 12 era.
Since the streak, the Jayhawks have played in six Final Fours and won 13 conference crowns. Zero and zero for K-State.
Ironically and sadly for K-State, the Wildcats fielded their best squad of the last quarter century in 1988. Mitch Richmond was a senior, Steve Henson a sophomore. K-State won 25 games, finished second in the Big Eight and is remembered mostly for losing the regional final to Kansas.
By then, the Jayhawks? rebirth as a national program was underway, and the Wildcats would begin to fade. A generation of fans has grown up recognizing Kansas State as a football-first school. They need their parents or grandparents to remind them of basketball?s glory days, when the likes of famed coaches Jack Gardner, Tex Winter, Cotton Fitzsimmons, Jack Hartman and Lon Kruger kept the program at or near the top of the conference for nearly four decades.
Tonight, it feels like it used to, or so people with more than a 20-year interest in the programs tell me. Because of Beasley, Kansas at Kansas State is anybody?s game, and if the Wildcats pull it out, they can draw the line and say nobody comes into Manhattan and wins 25 in a row.:mj07: GO JAYHAWKS!!!:00hour
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