A few days between games, nothing earth shattering to discuss, so I 'll write a little and hope someone reads and enjoys.

1000$ is what brought me to Kansas from the suburbs of Chicago. I had a professor at JUCO who played football at Missouri who actually recommended I go to either KU or Wisconsin. Both had excellent cartography programs and so I explored both.

Wisconsin sports was a joke in the 1980’s so I wasn’t swayed by sports to become a Badger, that would come later. I was engrossed in lllinois/Depaul hoops as a teenager, didn’t really know anything about KU basketball.

But KU was 1000.00$ cheaper a semester than UW so I packed up a little uhaul behind my Chevy Chevette and came out west! And was I glad I did!

I was on a field trip out to see what erosion had down to the Wakarusa (sp?) River and getting into the van, I pulled the door shut on someones hand. I heard someone say “I hope that’s not your shooting hand”. His hand was fine. I sized him up as a golfer, and asked him and he said he was on the basketball team. Now my interest was piqued! We chatted the short ride back to Kansas. His name was Scooter Berry and he filled me in about the history and aura surrounding the program.

Well 1985-86 was a good year to be introduced to KU athletics. The football team was actually competitive, Mike Norseth threw for 500 yards in my first game I’d seen against Vanderbilt and Willy Pless was on his way to the career tackles record in the league. Back then you had to buy football tickets to get basketball tickets for students so I went to the games. Things fell apart for the team after briefly being ranked, but no one seemed too concerned in the stands because of basketball being around the corner.

David Letterman provided someone to come for late night, the basketball team showed off and I was hooked.

Thankfully in those days fans weren’t crazy enough to have to sit in line for 4 days to get a good seat. It was more like get there a few hours early and while you might not end up behind the bench, behind the basket was always available. These seats were much closer to the court than they are now and so it was a great place to watch basketball.

Kansas played a better schedule then than they do these days and so there was a steady flow of great teams visiting Lawrence those seasons, and of course us going there too. I saw Louisville, Kentucky (not the famous beatdown), St. Johns, and many others. It was great fun.

That 85-86 team was an all time great at KU since I’ve been there. I can’t compare to earlier great teams. It was beat down city all year. No surviving last second shots by the opposition like we’ve done all year it seems. There were a few close calls, and a loss in ames and also a loss to Duke in a holiday tourney, but not much else tarnished that team. The Final Four was a foregone conclusion.

Clockgate happened in the regional final against Judd Heathcoate and the Spartans. We made a nice little comeback after that episode which included a technical against Larry Brown.

Getting to the Final Four was exciting of course until it wasn’t. The Duke whistle appeared…sigh, and a team that had beat eventual champ Louisville twice during the regular season wasn’t given the opportunity to beat them one more time. I knew I was into KU basketball because that 26-14 foul edge in a four point game that we led most of the time really stung, and it still does.

Adding to the magic of that season was the Royals world series win and the Bears dominating season.

1987 was a so so year by our standards and powerhouse Georgetown knocked us out in the Sweet 16.

1987-88 was magic of course. Late night the team sang a song “Kansas City Here I come” kind of like the Bears Super Bowl shuffle. But by Christmas it wasn’t looking like a FF season, it was looking like a bubble year.

I watched us lose at home for the first time since I’d been on campus to KState and Mitch Richmond, and of course Lon Kruger. The fans started leaving with about 2 minutes left. We started chanting at them “Don’t come back”! I’m sorry if you’re reading this and that was you! Two more losses to Duke and Oklahoma at home meant a 3 game losing streak at home. But of course, as you all know everything started clicking. The three home losses were all avenged and we won an amazing championship.

Campus afterwards, if you didn’t know what had happened, looked like a riot had happened. I bought my T shirts that I still have. I graduated 5 people in front of Danny a month or so later. Didn’t even know he was behind me as I walked down the hill, but everyone stood and cheered when they saw him coming in.

And then I was gone. Like most of you I kind of bleed crimson and blue. I’ve got to watch us in person twice since then. But thanks to cable I don’t miss a game.

Despite our relatively thin trophy case since I arrived it’s been an amazing stretch.

NCAA tournament every year since 1985 except for the 1 year ban.

Longest streak of tournaments qualified for ever.

Only 2 early exits in that 30+ year period.

24 conference championships.

13 conference tournament championships

22 sweet 16’s.

15 elite 8’s

9 FF’s

5 Championship games

2 Championships.

Kstate’s made the sweet 16 3 times in the same time span, the elite 8 twice, and of course no FF’s since I was born in 1964!

Missouri has made the sweet 16 4 times, elite 8 3 times. Of course no FF’s ever!

I’m not going to take the time to do this research but I’d guess we have more of all those categories than the rest of the Big 12 combined since 1985.

I’m glad I came to KU! If anyone took the time to read this long thing, thanks!

3:00 Tarik Phillip made Layup. 64 - 50

2:43 Foul on Jevon Carter. 64 - 50

2:43 Frank Mason III made Free Throw. 64 - 51

2:43 Frank Mason III made Free Throw. 64 - 52

2:40 Foul on Lagerald Vick. 64 - 52

2:40 Tarik Phillip missed Free Throw. 64 - 52

2:40 Landen Lucas Defensive Rebound. 64 - 52

2:30 Devonte’ Graham missed Three Point Jumper. 64 - 52

2:30 Landen Lucas Offensive Rebound. 64 - 52

2:21 Frank Mason III made Three Point Jumper. 64 - 55

2:18 Kansas Timeout 64 - 55

2:06 Foul on Frank Mason III. 64 - 55

2:06 Daxter Miles Jr. missed Free Throw. 64 - 55

2:06 West Virginia Deadball Team Rebound. 64 - 55

2:06 Daxter Miles Jr. missed Free Throw. 64 - 55

2:06 Josh Jackson Defensive Rebound. 64 - 55

1:56 Devonte’ Graham made Three Point Jumper. Assisted by Lagerald Vick. 64 - 58

1:46 West Virginia Turnover. 64 - 58

1:43 Devonte’ Graham Turnover. 64 - 58

1:43 Tarik Phillip Steal. 64 - 58

1:40 Foul on Devonte’ Graham. 64 - 58

1:40 Tarik Phillip made Free Throw. 65 - 58

1:40 Tarik Phillip made Free Throw. 66 - 58

1:33 Frank Mason III made Layup. 66 - 60

1:33 Kansas Timeout 66 - 60

1:25 Foul on Lagerald Vick. 66 - 60

1:25 James Bolden missed Free Throw. 66 - 60

1:25 West Virginia Deadball Team Rebound. 66 - 60

1:25 James Bolden made Free Throw. 67 - 60

1:15 Foul on Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk. 67 - 60

1:15 Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk Turnover. 67 - 60

1:15 West Virginia Timeout 67 - 60

1:14 Nathan Adrian Turnover. 67 - 60

1:14 Landen Lucas Steal. 67 - 60

1:13 Foul on Nathan Adrian. 67 - 60

1:13 Frank Mason III made Free Throw. 67 - 61

1:13 Frank Mason III made Free Throw. 67 - 62

1:07 Foul on Lagerald Vick. 67 - 62

1:07 Tarik Phillip made Free Throw. 68 - 62

1:07 Tarik Phillip made Free Throw. 69 - 62

1:03 Devonte’ Graham missed Three Point Jumper. 69 - 62

1:03 Carlton Bragg Jr. Offensive Rebound. 69 - 62

0:52 Foul on Elijah Macon. 69 - 62

0:52 Devonte’ Graham made Free Throw. 69 - 63

0:52 Devonte’ Graham made Free Throw. 69 - 64

0:52 Tarik Phillip Turnover. 69 - 64

0:52 Landen Lucas Steal. 69 - 64

0:47 Frank Mason III missed Layup. 69 - 64

0:47 Landen Lucas Offensive Rebound. 69 - 64

0:47 Landen Lucas made Two Point Tip Shot. 69 - 66

0:45 Foul on Mitch Lightfoot. 69 - 66

0:45 Esa Ahmad made Free Throw. 70 - 66

0:45 Esa Ahmad made Free Throw. 71 - 66

0:36 Devonte’ Graham made Three Point Jumper. 71 - 69

0:33 Kansas Timeout 71 - 69

0:26 Tarik Phillip Turnover. 71 - 69

0:21 Foul on Tarik Phillip. 71 - 69

0:21 Frank Mason III made Free Throw. 71 - 70

0:21 Frank Mason III made Free Throw. 71 - 71

0:16 West Virginia Timeout 71 - 71

0:02 Tarik Phillip missed Three Point Jumper. 71 - 71

0:02 James Bolden Offensive Rebound. 71 - 71

0:00 End of 2nd half 71 - 71

To further break it down

3-5 3 pointers 2 by Graham, 1 by Mason 9 points

8-8 FT’s 8 points

2-3 on layups 4 points

2 turnovers

3 offensive RB’s, 1 defensive.

WVU 3 turnovers,

WVU 0-1 FG’s. That’s all they attempted, this according to the data above. And the 1 shot? Their desperation heave at the end of regulation.

WVU 7 FT’s

Interesting stuff. Of course we had to foul them, but they really made it tough on themselves by not taking more than 1 shot down the stretch.

This list just ends regulation. I didn’t break down OT.

I don’t recommend this as a winning formula, but it sure was fun while it lasted.

One part of this season that has been fascinating to watch is this teams ability to win games where their recent history would indicate that maybe they’d fall flat. None of the games I’ll mention were earth shattering upsets or history making games in our long ledger of basketball games. They were just games that in my view were significant.

We were all kind of in shock just before Christmas. A lot of us were thinking we just might enter conference play undefeated. After a month of patsies we were glad to see a team that at least would be competitive we thought. The Washington Huskies came into so called AFH East and extended the Pac12’s win streak over us to at least two games. ASU, a team on a roll, and some here acknowledged they were a bit nervous about, comes in and embarrasses us at home.

Suddenly the fan base is edgy. Some are whispering ‘could this be the year they don’t win the league’? Some are even thinking worse, like maybe this team doesn’t even make the dance.

To make matters worse, at least for our somewhat insecure fan base, there’s not a game all week. And it’s at Nebraska, a place we figured would be kind of tough to play. 3 game losing streaks don’t happen too often around these places and we just might suffer one at Lincoln.

A nip and tuck game had Jayhawk fans really on edge. The game chats were a little tense. Nebraska tries to win it in the end, but we pull it out, barely, but someone, not remembering whom, said this felt like a big win. And it did. We’d gotten our season kind of back on track it felt like and we would win a few more before the first TT setback.

A 4-1 start in league play brings us to our next difference making game. We were going to be 4-2 after losing in Morgantown a lot of us said. With good reason. A 4 game losing streak there really gave us a sense of dread, and most of the games, (besides the WVU buzzer beater where the guy picked up his dribble at the 3 point line and shot a layup) were not very close. And then we fall behind. Graham makes the most significant shot of the season, a 3 at the buzzer for halftime that trims a 16 point deficit to 13 and some needed confidence. The 2nd epic comeback against Huggies Thuggies and suddenly we were saying this whole conference championship thing looks possible. A big monkey off our back and we were starting to think about the toughness of our team.

The 3rd game was Sundays historic game against Duke. If there’s a time when we enter a game with a feeling of some dread and some inferiority it’s when we play Duke. They receive the press clippings, the adoration of casual fans in many places, and just a notch higher in the national consciousness than we do.

Pause for a rant. Listened to CBS college basketball podcast today on the way home and Norlander and Parrish talked way more about Duke than any of the FF teams. grrrrr…

KU came into the game with another burden to bear, the perceived failures of our team in Elite 8 games. This is despite the fact that this century we’ve won four of them and lost four of them, nothing to hang our head in shame about. But of course Bill Self has been the coach for 3 of those elite 8 losses, and he’s got a few from other seasons with other schools. We all knew we could beat that team appropriately named the Devils. And we did. Kind of a huge weight lifting off of our collective backs. Bill Self’s reaction said it all. Despite having won the NC, and played for another, He had earned a somewhat negative reputation nationally.

Sundays win may be a freeing type of game that allows this team to burst forth with a run the next few seasons of final fours and championships. Most championship teams overcome some sort of adversity. This one has. Way to go Jayhawks! Lets bring home championship #4!

He is Risen indeed!

Happy easter to all who believe this greatest of all messages. It’s better than hoops, or baseball, or money, or a delicious lamb chop grilled to perfection every day of the week.

I’m sure some here don’t have similar beliefs, but it’s important to me and hard for me not to be excited about it. All enjoy this great day!

1. Add an N and Siena is also a color and a car.

2. I’m officially concerned about our 3 point offense and 3 point defense.

3. I’m not as concerned about FT’s. Bill Self will fix it.

4. After playing in far flung places it was nice to see us on a court with a friendly bird in the middle.

5. I think we’re still adjusting to the loss of Perry Ellis.

6. No one fills a stat sheet in such an ugly way as Landen Lucas. 6 pts, 5 boards, 5 blocks, 2 fouls.

7. LaGerald is the most exciting Vick since Michael. He’s averaging almost 10 a game which is quite a bit higher than I expected out of him this year. I just hope he stays away from the dogs.

8. JJ’s 3 point percentage (.400) is surprising in many ways. It’s the high on the team, we didn’t expect him to be a great 3 baller, and it’s higher than his FT percentage (.375). Like Duke, he showed some flashes last night but we will need him to not just have flashes of brilliance.

9. Bragg is our only big averaging over 10 points a game. It’s still early, but interior scoring must improve…I think…but

10. We all knew it coming in, but our guard play has lived up to billing (except for the 3 percentage). Enjoy the season folks. It’s going to be a fun season watching them.

I take everything back I said about Kansas usually getting calls. Vick trips into a dude, no advantage gained, foul called anyways. KU’s trip down the floor, Newmie gets pushed to the floor, no foul called.

The foul count is like 12-4 and ISU fans still whining.

ESPN has got to know fans of every team hates their split screen coverage. I counted it on the DVR, Lunardi talked for almost 3 minutes, then they put the big12 standings on the screen for 30 more seconds. All while action is going on.

Doke may never miss a shot again.

Vick and Newmann decided to come play it appears. Wish this was consistent.

Svi still is in a rut, as long as it returns one month from now.

Vick is so athletic I’m in awe.

Desousa and Cunliffe on the floor at the same time!

Long buzzer beater dang.

2nd half starts, wait, they didn’t count the long buzzer beater.

We’ve shown some resiliency this 2nd half. They come down with the ball with a chance to cut it to one possession and then we get a stop. SOMETIMES this is a tough team.

I’m glad I didn’t grow up with the last name lard.

I really enjoyed the years of great ISU teams with Fred and our epic battles up there. The energy just isn’t there this year.

We’re 8-4 in the league (remember this game isn’t over for me yet) which means we’ve played 12 other teams super bowls.

Maybe Lightfoot has hit his wall.

Oh yeah, happy Mardi Gras!

I know someone knows this, how many alley oops this year for Doke?

Doke is deceptively fast.

Keep seeing ads for MSU-Minny. I loathe Minny so much that I drive around the state so I don’t have to go in it.

Finally some balanced scoring.

I wonder if DG is tired.

I wonder if Tom Crean has repressed the memory tonight of losing 71-30 halfway through the 2nd half to KU at the Final Four in 2003?

Svi has forgot how to finish at the rim too.

Doke sitting in crunch time. Smart move? We’ll see.

What a great crunch time 3 by Newman!

Lightfoot draws a lot of charges, but twice he’s failed tonight, both times the clones seemed to get the benefit of the call.

I think Lightfoot committed Newmies 5th foul.

I swear if they give this replay review to the clones I will be all in on referee conspiracies.

OK, I’m undecided on referee conspiracies, but I’m ready to jump back on board @jayhawkfantoo.

Nice game Jayhawks. We can take a step back from the ledge at least for a few days here.

Announcer sounds a little disappointed in us winning.

I enjoyed chatting during the game once again.

I didn’t enjoy being a minute or so behind most of you because of a little glitchy game feed.

I did enjoy watching a 28-8 run to close things out. That was vintage KU basketball.

And isn’t defense a beautiful thing to watch? We had 13 steals. They were things of majestic wonder! Partly because the whistles I was expecting on most of them didn’t come.

Isaiah Moss, kudos to you, which is kind of hard to say for me as a Badger too, but I’m glad you changed an I for a J with your Hawk.

Doke, your perseverance through adversity has won us some games this year. When the bad fight left us shorthanded and you got in foul trouble, and managed not to foul out, well that was big, and to see you finished with 3 fouls tonight after picking up two in about the 1st four minutes? Awesome.

Dotson. Game ball for not turning it over in that whithering pressure. Clutch FT’s save the day.

Ochai, some great moments too. Keep improving, we’re going to need you.

Garrett, tonights MVP! 9 points, 5 steals, 4 assts, 7 boards, a quadruple single. That’s filling the stat sheet even if it’s offset by 6 TO’s and 4 fouls. You’ll probably never be enshrined in the rafters because it’s offensive numbers that makes that happen, but I don’t think we win tonight without your all american defensive game. It’s really too bad they don’t have all defense teams for NCAA like the NBA does.

Enaruna, you made a great pass to that hillbilly in the first row.

Big Dave, I think you learned a lesson tonight. If you don’t have it going, you’re not going to play much.

Braun, you’re a freshman and WVU is really tough on freshmen. You’ve been invaluable to this team and I’m still miffed that DeSousa stole the limelight from your big night in Lawrence.

Coach Self, on the road to 800 wins. Let’s get this Natty. It might be your best chance for a while because there’s that big ugly cloud which I shouldn’t even bring up, but it’s there. This feels like THE YEAR to make up for lost time and to soothe the hurt that is likely coming soon. This is the team that can do this.

@globaljaybird I decided to quit KUBuckets a couple of weeks ago. But as the Indiana game loomed I really wanted to be part of the live chat, so it allowed me to rebrand myself and choose a less clunkier handle without losing my identity from before.

You don’t realize how much something is part of your life until it’s gone. I found myself lurking and the lurking caused me to reconsider dropping out and well, here I am, same as always. I quit Facebook the other day also after the election, really tired of ‘friends’ on FB bickering over the result. I’ve never seen a country so divided. Of course I wasn’t alive during the Civil War, so I guess there’s that, but in my ever increasing lifetime, we are at an almost 3rd world like mentality of I don’t like the election so I’m going to riot. I’m not against protesting necessarily but protesting the will 50,000,000 people or so seems to be sore loserish. (I didn’t vote for Trump fyi!)

Speaking of the election, I read where some department of KU was offering ‘serenity dogs’ or some such term for students to play with to help deal with the emotional toll from the election. They weren’t the only ones. Ivy league schools were offering all kinds of ridiculous play do, coloring books, etc to students to ‘help’ them. Ironically it’s not helping these kids one bit because they’ll be working in real jobs in a few years and experience in jobs where bosses will breathe down their necks and these pansies won’t be emotionally prepared to handle.

So to some up, I need @Red_Rooster to read this and affirm me with a thumbs up because I don’t have a serenity dog to comfort me when no one thumbs up my rambling post!

t I met Jerrance at the Proviso West tournament near Chicago. Future Jayhawk Markese Jacobs was playing. I told coach I had some eligibility left

No offense to anyone here but this board has lost much of my interest this year. Missing jaybate is a major reason why. I still check back out of habit, and appreciate some of the banter, but it’s lost its color. I’ve been home all day for Presidents Day and this is the first time I’ve looked at it. I remember a couple of years back that @brooksmd left too along with globaljaybird. Some I know keep in touch.

I didn’t read everything Jaybate wrote, some of it was outlandish, but goodness, it was entertaining and educational! He was a tireless cheerleader for the Jayhawks, seeing the slightest of silverlining in the darkest cloud.

I guess this is part of the mysterious nature of an online community. We’re all anonymous. And when someone goes we’re all scratching our heads. Some of you have been part of my life for over a decade! Some of us go back to the KUSports days. Some names are brand new like this week. Life goes on. Hopefully we can keep this thing going. Thanks to @approxinfinity our MVP Techie for everything.

@kjayhawks Only 2 months? I’m still not over Syracuse!

Since I was in the dome in 2012, I’ve never seen the game so I’m watching it right now. Still amazed I got to attend a NC game, but at 50 bucks a ticket, it was hard to pass up. That Kentucky team was so good even Cal couldn’t screw it up and won his NC.

@bmensch1 Well 1 out of 3 I’ll be interested in watching, although since I was in the stands in 2012 I might watch some of that since I have never watched the telecast.

@approxinfinity

Highlights of mine from that game. Milt Newton reverse layup early 1st half. Chris Piper shot clock beater. Dave Seeger of Oklahoma makes 6 3’s in first half. Billy Packer, the announcer keeps saying Kansas can’t keep up with Oklahoma at that pace.

To me the best play of the game, right near end of 1st half Danny gets a fastbreak and Oklahoma’s star Stacy King is running after him. Danny slows down at the rim, on purpose, so King can try to block his shot, and instead fouls him for an and 1. Brilliant Danny maneuver. He missed the FT, so it wasn’t a true and 1!

@Texas-Hawk-10 I know all of that. I can’t wrap my mind around leaving when you have a really great chance to win a championship. Frank Kaminsky also came back for his senior year saying he was having too much fun in college to go play for half empty gyms in the NBA.

@bmensch1 I have watched the 88 game numerous times on YouTube. Never watched 2003. Never will either.

@BShark Thanks! This was a lot of work to put together. Was hoping people would participate.

@DanR It’s kind of the same reasoning that I voted against Gooden. He seemed aloof during his time at KU. He was a great player, but left a team after the 2002 that had so much potential for 2003. His going pro was something I didn’t understand. I do get the money is enticing, but I recall he had a decent family and had he stuck around with Kirk and Nick, and Langford, and Lee, and Simien, and Miles, goodness gracious, we might have won every game by 20 points!

I don’t if you all are able to see the current results of the voting, but Raef has overtaken Withey at present. If you want Withey to win, better call your friends!

@BShark My memory is Arizona was pretty unknown at the time. They were young. .9 years experience. They took me/us totally by surprise when they beat us. The only redemption in it for us is losing to the champion.

@approxinfinity Surprised you don’t remember much about him. As @KirkIsMyHinrich points out he was a truly remarkable player. We made a nice comeback at the end of that game and he had a good look from the corner that missed. Game would have been tied at that point.