So you got the summer blues?
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You might need a little time and a six pack but you’ll love it.
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Fond memory!
Although I never noticed Hightower tossed the ball to Memphis to start the game!
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I watched the whole thing again
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Ed Hightower was the referee at the '88 KU-OU game as well. He was kind of clownish as a referee, but apparently he was our good luck charm; too bad he is retired now,we could use another title.
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Oh yeah… we won that game, right?
(surely I don’t have to mention the sarcasm)
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I ordered the DVD and get truly sickened by Billy P (sorry, I’m a Bears fan, can’t even type his last name!) and his biased commenting. I never minded Billy until that game either, but for some reason he called it like was John Calipari’s daddy.
Speaking of title games, there’s a lot of rumors of Carmello to the Bulls. Kirk and Carmelo on the same team is an interesting concept. I’m sure NBA players have lots of carry overs from College days, but I’d guess Kirk is still sick about that best chance at a ring.
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Who knew!!! Well, obviously you did! I always felt he called goofy games wanting people to notice HIM…but if we’ve won our last two titles with him then he must be the greatest ref ever!
Bring him back for the '15 F4 in Indy!!!
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@DoubleDD Thanks for the video memories. I didnt erase this off my dvr for over 2yrs! (of course I have numerous DVDs of this game. One of the best is the 6-game (6disc) entire Championship Run, that I got from cbssports, I believe). The more common cbs “final4” dvd has very strange ffwd’d version of the KU-UNC game (damn irritating, as Jayhawk fans should revel in seeing that bloodbath in it’s entirety of Self’s system showing us all the little + big ways that it beats Roy’s system), along with the full Champ game of KU vs. Memphis. Maybe cbs’s product idea was to give people a cliff notes preface of the Champ game by showing a ‘summary’ version of the KU-UNC shellackin’…?
Honestly, I cant watch it without knowing I’m going to get all emotional again. As time goes by, you realize just how hard it is, even for Self’s talented rosters to make it back to the Champ game. Those 08 kids had so much heart and fight, absolutely my favorite Self team of his entire coaching career. Of course the 2012ThomasRobinson/TyshawnHawks are a close 2nd, as they proved to have all the heart and fight…but just short on depth…and ran out of clock in their comeback.
God love everything Bill Self has done for KU, and generally speaking, the great young men he brings to represent the University of KS.
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@ralster I have the same DVD that has both Final 4 games but not in their entirety, yet does have the whole championship game. I was thinking I got it from Sports Illustrated in their post-championship package. Also included (on a separate DVD) is a pretty cool season recap narrated by Kevin Harlan. I didn’t get the whole 6 disc championship run, but I I did get the UNC game on DVD from cbssports. I couldn’t not have that game to relive!
I was just talking about the '08 team on another thread. Greatest collection of 4 perimeter players we’ve seen under Self. The post players weren’t as good as some other teams, but guys like Darnell & Sasha were indeed all fight & heart.
Reminiscing…I might watch those DVDs tonight! RCJHGKU!
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@icthawkfan316 Yeah, now that you mention it, Im not sure if maybe I, too, got it as part of the SI pkg. There was another dvd, maybe by KU athletics, call “Rock Chalk Championship”…which gives a recap of most of the season, and has some player interviews–but interestingly not all of them, not even all of the starters. Must be some player’s agents at “work” behind the scenes…?
I’ll take a quote from Bill Self (recently put this on another thread), and will use KU and KY as examples, simply to show how it is a gem of coaching wisdom, and can be used to judge any team: “…You hope by March/Tournament time your team is playing at a high level of efficiency, and frankly, the best you can hope for is to make the Final Four, where against other really good teams…anything can happen.” Now see that even for the 08Champs their “moments of inefficiency” almost cost them 3 times: bad offense vs Davidson, went infamously “brain dead” in the central portionof the game vs. UNC (bad shot selection & shots not dropping) almost allowing a comeback, and the opening 17min of the 2nd half vs. Memphis where we went into halftime with a 7pt? lead, yet ended up 9pts down due to bad offensive efficiency/same shots not dropping. Notice '12 KU was simply too inefficient in shooting to overcome the huge deficit–a pattern that that team showed all season, being dubbed the “comback kids” in the post-season ku-athletics memoir book.
KY, enviably was able to be efficient vs '12 KU, as Doron Lamb went 4/4 from treys, and Kidd-Gilchrist played big. They had a mix of talent and experience, but also depth. Biggest difference in the game was KU’s offensive inefficiency. KY this last season, was very inconsistent all season on both ends of the court, but who’d have figured that they would put it all together IN the Tournament, basically winning a sparkling shootout against WSU. WSU couldnt stop the much-maligned Harrison twins, who dropped 20pts apiece. To get to the champ game, KY put together a very efficient run…until they ran into UConn, who seemingly had an efficient outing, while I think we saw the Harrison twins performance regress towards their season-long average…Basically, in the '14 Champ game, KY could not duplicate their previous level of efficiency.
This topic of “Elite8–>to–>ChampGame efficiency” is of special interest to me (& many Jayhawk fans), as we think we should make the F4, and usually are a 1 or 2 seed, thus making such beliefs at least plausible. But can we play consistently at high efficiency to sustain a late run? '14 KY could not. '14 Florida could not. '13 KU could not, as they beat themselves by squandering the lead they had slowly built (over Michigan) by falling into an incredulous display of inefficiency on the offensive end, coupled with key ballhandling errors–all in the last 4min. Look at the VCU loss: an absolutely out-of-character, abysmally inefficient outing by a basketball team, with 6 t.o.'s by 1 player alone, and another going 1-7 from trey–simply too many possessions wasted, that werent “made-up” by getting a turnover on the other end or enough stops in the comeback attempt…if you look at it as a non-ku fan, KU didnt deserve to win that one, as they never showed 1-seed type dominance for most of the game. This is why Michigan loss stung maybe worse, is that actually in-game KU had showed enough to win, steadily building the lead, only to lose control at the end. The interesting part is, of course, how else can we system-design to prevent this from happening during one of our Tourney runs? A question only that Bill Self can address directly.
(The obvious corollary here is that if we couldnt even put together 5 or 6 consistent, high-efficient games during ANY portion of the regular season, then whats the chance it would happen in the high-pressure Tourney? KY was almost an exception, but ultimately fell due to inconsistency. And didnt KSU beat us in Bramlage? Didnt it take last second heroics to win at TxTech? Couldnt beat WVU who didnt even go to the Tourney? Those are ALL huge benchmark-type of “clues” on what type of team we had…Now, we’ll judge the trends this year–I’ll have about a 90% idea of what type of team we have after the BigXII Tourney… )
RCJH
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Summer is NOT the problem!
No ball is the widow maker.
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Now that was a helluva post!
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@ralster I have felt that the Michigan loss was the toughest to take for the reasons you mentioned. As you said, we played like we all thought we should and had control of the game for 38 mins. Then blew it in the last 2 (or maybe 4 as you say). Time will tell, but given how hard it is to advance in the tournament, to have control of virtually the entire game and them implode down the stretch…that loss will sting the longest for me, I believe.
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@Hawk8086 Agreed. And I dont know if this is any consolation to any of us KU faithful…maybe it could be, depending on a person’s particular outlook: Almost all of KU’s notable Tournament losses have come at the hands of KU themselves…ie: we beat ourselves in several categories in the same game, enough so that almost anybody can beat us.
Syracuse 03, beaten by KU in live action minutes, but KU lost the game narrowly at the FT line by shooting a dismal FT% (clock stopped, no hand in shooter’s face, non-rushed shot. Shoot season avg FT%, and win by 6 or 7.)
UCLA 07, where KU stripped and turned over UCLA as much as they did to us…but we missed our bunnies, going 1on1, which wasnt what brought us that far. UCLA made their buckets.
(MichSt 09 simply outplayed, outhustled, and outphysicalled the frosh Twins team).
UNI 2010: classic example of KU not defending, not hitting our open looks…along with a groin-slowed Sherron.
VCU 2011: Overall #1 seed KU goes down due to uncharacteristic turnovers (too many), missed open looks3’s (too many), and a blitz-style attack by VCU that only showed our defense was too slow to adjust to what VCU was doing.
KY 2012: Offensive inefficiency, shot ourselves out of the game, as events proved. And generally we dont get shots blocked by anybody to the degree that KY blocked ours. The heroic comeback fell short because the hole was too big. Our doing. Our poor offense to generate blockable shots. Maybe we beat anybody but '12 KY. Hard to put this team on such a list, as it was almost a gift they made it to the Champ game. But honestly, 3 missed dunks and a couple of clanked FTs = 8pts we left out there, while we closed to within 5pts late…hmm…But again, this squad’s heart cannot be questioned, and I’ll remember the image of Tyshawn trying to console a defeated Thomas Robinson forever. They gave everything they had.
Michigan '13: Likely the most infamous final 2-3min in the Bill Self era. We literally gave it away, while Michigan simply had to make every shot, and they did. Tables turned like KU did vs. Memphis. I felt the most for the departing seniors, every one of them. We had invested a lot of emotional rooting for Withey, Releford, and EJ to get their chance and make the most of it.
Stanford '14: Couldnt finish against length. Only 13 turnovers (season avg.). Not bad FT%. Fair defense. Game came down to Tarik Black fouling out. A close margin game, where we just missed a few too many paint looks. Credit Stanford’s gameplan in this one. Lack of leadership, both vocal as well as by example as well. A different collection of problems felled us in this one. Plus the team had a limited offensive repertoire to begin with. Not a lot of adjustments to make, because they only had a partial toolkit…
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@ralster well that was depressing!
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Nice summary. As you know, of all the teams that make it to the dance, only one does not go home with a loss in it final game of the season and stories of what could have been. I talk to fans of other elite programs and they all have similar stories. If you are a top ranked program, short of winning the tournament, you will likely be disappointed, so by no means we are the only ones. The more successful the program is, the more disappointment there will be.
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On ESPNU right now they are re-airing the KU v. Duke game!
