The greatest programs: No. 3, Kansas
Posted: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 9:16 PM
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Greatest hoops programs
If there’s a cradle of college basketball, it may be the University of Kansas.
James Naismith, the game’s inventor, coached there. As a coach, Phog Allen influenced two of the game’s winningest coaches, Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp, and was a driving force behind the NCAA tournament. Wilt Chamberlain was a Jayhawk. Few schools boast that kind of history.
Beyond the lore, Kansas is one of today’s preeminent programs. It’s one of six schools with at least 2 NCAA titles in the last 20 years, and no team has won more games since 1990. (Kansas also had its share of NCAA disappointments. More on that later.)
That tradition, mixed with consistent excellence and modern prosperity makes Kansas No. 3 on the list of greatest programs.
It begins with coaching.
Kansas has had eight coaches in 110 seasons. Only one (Naismith) sports a losing record. Three (Larry Brown, Roy Williams and Bill Self) won at least 75 percent of their games. Even Ted Owens, a coach fired because his teams failed to thrive, reached two Final Fours, won 348 games in 19 years and claimed seven conference crowns. Most schools would envy those results.
But that’s how it goes at one of the elite programs. Winning is paramount.
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Kansas’ 1,943 wins are behind only Kentucky (1,966) and North Carolina (1,950) in NCAA history, while its .7122 win percentage is 4th best.
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The Jayhawks have won 3 NCAA tournaments (tied for 5th) and have been to 13 Final Fours (tied for 5th); one in every decade except the ‘60s. Only UNC can top that.
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In 37 appearances in the Big Dance, KU has won 70 percent of its games. It hasn’t missed the big show since 1989, the third-best streak in NCAA history.
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The Jayhawks have dominated lately, winning at least 25 games 10 times in the last 15 years and at least 30 six times. Only Duke has more.
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Eleven Kansas players have been consensus All-Americans 15 times, five in the last 10 years.
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Kansas’ most impressive area? No team can match its 51 regular-season conference titles. Only three teams have more than 34.
Those conference crowns are the best indicator of Kansas’ success through the years. Starting in 1910, the Jayhawks have won at least 3 times in each decade except the 1980s (when they won a national title and 3 Big 8 tournament titles). Every coach has at least two. The longest KU went without a conference crown? Six years. Lest one thinks it’s all ancient history, 21 have come since 1960.
Simply put, Kansas was a national power before some programs even existed.
Most of the early history (after Naismith and before Chamberlain) revolves around Allen’s time at Kansas. He took over for Naismith in 1907, won 43 games in two years at Lawrence before a 10-year hiatus in Missouri. His successor, William Hamilton, helped establish Kansas as the team to beat in the Missouri Valley Conference, winning five titles in six years.
Allen returned in 1919. Two years later, he guided Kansas to a 16-2 record and the first of six consecutive conference titles. Though it wasn’t clear at the time, two things were significant about that season: Junior Adolph Rupp was on the roster and Kansas emerged as the nation’s best team.
Rupp, of course, went onto fame as Kentucky’s coach, winning 876 games and four NCAA titles. He’s second third all-time in wins and second in win percentage.
The Helms Foundation – a panel of experts that determined champions retroactively -- bestowed titles on Kansas’ 1922 and 1923 teams. Helms titles weren’t considered in this list, but serves as an important reference points for how good a team was compared to the competition.
For the next 30 years, Allen ensured the Jayhawks kept winning (4th winningest team of the ‘30s and an NCAA championship game in 1940 showed as much). By 1952, he had one of his best teams, featuring the nation’s best player, Clyde Lovellete, and another future coaching star, Dean Smith.
Lovellette, a 6-10 center who led the nation in scoring and rebounding, carried Kansas to its first NCAA title, dominating St. John’s in the title game. It was sweet for Allen, who refused to let Kansas participate in the NIT because he viewed the tournament as a hotbed for gamblers to fix games. He helped push the NCAA into the big time, both as a backer and with his teams’ success.
Smith played sparingly on that ’52 team, but he, like Rupp, went onto greater coaching endeavors. He won 879 games and two NCAA titles at UNC. Is it a coincidence UNC and Kentucky are the only schools with more wins than Kansas?
(Ralph Miller, who played on Kansas’ 1940 runner-up squad, also became another great coach who played under Allen. Only in a group like this would Miller, who won 657 games, be overshadowed.)
Allen was 66 years old when KU won in ’52. Froced into retirement at 70, he never got to coach Chamberlain, his prize recruit. That fell to new coach Dick Harp, who tried to capitalize on the greatest talent the game had ever seen.
Kansas reached the national title game in 1957 against unbeaten North Carolina, but ultimately fell short, losing in triple overtime, 54-53, holding Chamberlain to 23 points, six below his average.
Harp coached another seven years, reaching the 1960 regional finals, but never seemed to recover from losing that title game. He only got to coach Chamberlain for another season, who was even better as a junior, averaging 30.1 points a game and grabbing 17.5 rebounds, often out of double and triple teams. But Kansas finished 18-5 and missed the NCAA tourney. Chamberlain left KU after that school year.
Kansas had the nation’s most dominant player for two season but couldn’t claim a title. It wasn’t the last time failure to fulfill expectations would dog the program.
Owens took over in 1964. He logged back-to-back 23-4 seasons in ’66 and ’67, but never broke through to the Final Four, just missing a chance against Texas Western with future Boston Celtics star Jo Jo White running the show.
But he re-tooled and by ’71 had the strongest team of his tenure. The Jayhawks would finish 27-3 and go unbeaten in the Big 8, but an 8-point loss to UCLA in the Final Four prevented a title shot. Three years later, Marquette upended KU in the Final Four.
Owens’ teams weren’t as consistently good as Allen’s, recording an occasional sub-.500 season. Still, the fans loved their Jayahwks, and Allen Fieldhouse, build in ’55 to honor their legendary coach, remained one of college hoops’ holy spots.
Owens, however, eventually ran out of support, prompting his firing after the 1982-83 season. Kansas turned to Larry Brown, a UNC grad and ex-UCLA coach, who promptly delivered the desired results.
The Jayhawks won the Big 8 tournament title in his first season and reached the Final Four in his third. But few would’ve predicted the miracle in ’88.
Danny Manning, a two-time consensus All-American who came to Kansas as the most heralded recruit since Chamberlain, was long thought to be the player who could carry the Jayhawks to a title. A 6-10 forward who do it all, with or without the ball, Manning couldn’t carry the team on his own during the regular season, when KU finished third in the Big 8 and entered the Big Dance 21-11 overall.
So when Kansas reached the Final Four, then upset Duke, then Oklahoma for the title, it was a both a big surprise and a big relief. The downside? Kansas missed the 1989 tournament due to NCAA probation and couldn’t defend its title. Brown jumped to the pros and Kansas turned to Williams, a UNC assistant to ensure the program’s continued success.
His first team started 19-12, but the next season, Kansas took off. It won the preseason NIT, went from unranked to 4th in the AP poll (still the biggest jump in the poll’s history), won 30 games and finished second in a brutal Big 8.
The next season, Kansas was in the national title game, beating Carolina and Williams’ mentor, Smith in the process. Another Final Four followed in 1993, which cemented Williams as one of the game’s best coaches.
Kansas thrived under Williams, averaging nearly 29 wins a season in the ‘90s and claiming seven conference crowns. But it wasn’t all good. Kansas was a No. 1 seed four times in the ‘90s, but never reached the Final Four as a top seed in that span. The 1996-97 team entered the Big Dance 34-1, but lost in the Sweet 16.
Was Kansas an underachiever? It didn’t claim a NCAA tournament trophy, but few would say the program wasn’t one of the nation’s best. Yet in a winner-take-all world, the Jayhawks and Williams weren’t seen as good enough.
Kansas dealt with more of the same when it reached the Final Four in 2003, but lost to Syracuse in the title game. When Williams left for UNC after that season, more NCAA heartbreak followed under new coach Bill Self. Kansas lost first-round games in back-to-back seasons in ’05 and ’06. Call it a March backlash.
But now, after a 37-3 season that culminated with an NCAA title, there aren’t any doubters left. Self’s winning percentage (.816) is the best of any Kansas coach and the school has swept Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles the last three seasons. The winning tradition is still in full swing.
It’s no different than when Allen was coaching – the Jayhawks are among the teams to beat, just like in every other decade since 1910. And that’s something only two other programs can boast.
Next Tuesday: No. 2 on the list of greatest programs.
No. 4, UCLA.
No. 5, Duke.
No. 6, Indiana.
No. 7, Louisville.
No. 8, Arizona.
No. 9, Syracuse.
No. 10, Connecticut.
No. 11, Cincinnati.
No. 12, Utah.
No. 13: Villanova.
No. 14: Illinois.
No. 15: Michigan State.
No. 16: Georgetown.
No. 17: Arkansas.
No. 18: Ohio State.
No. 19: St. John's.
No. 20: UNLV.
No. 21: Texas.
No. 22: Notre Dame.
No. 23: Temple.
No. 24: Oklahoma.
No. 25: N.C. State.
