6
Friday, March 29, 1974
University Daily Kansan
Kansan Staff Photos by CARL DAYAZ
Coliseum maintenance men give the court at
final baffle before Monday night's games.
NBC's Curt Gowd had to look his best.
"Which end do you want to warm up on, John?" Kansas coach Ted Wesens asks UCLA coach John. Wooden. Wooden had a preference and the Bruins made the best of it.
But for Some, Getting There Was Half the Fun
"I remember this trip for the rest of my life," said Kansas' super-sub Rick Suttle. Here, squared off against UCLA's big man, Antony Sutton, Suttle was playing it minute by minute.
By HAL RITTER
Knaan Staff Reporter
It wasn't exactly like frankness with Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, but it was a burned-out, out-of-touch smile.
For the 80 students who rode two SUA buses to Greenbush, N.C., for the NCAA basketball finals and back, the trip was outrageously funny, often bizarre, sometimes disappointing, but never dull.
Okay, so KU just the big one at Greenbrook. But when the buses in store进 to St. Louis at 4:15 afternoon and the tub in the rear of each bus was with beer for the last time, no one cared any longer.
On the second bus as it rolled out of St. Louis, everyone settled back with a Budweiser—it's about the only brand you can find in St. Louis—and en route, you're presented by the emcee at the front of the bus.
Winners of the Martha Mitchell Miscongeniality Award, The Best Performance in an Unableable Competition.
improperly prizes with imbriated elan, and everyone went to getting drunk.
Boozing it up seemed appropriate for the return
up, since the KU team was returning to Lawrence
of Oakland in 1974.
For the students on the SUA buses, getting to Greensboro and back took almost as long as the three-day tournament. The 100 alumni who made it to the champion charter jet got to Greensboro in 80 minutes.
The students on the buses didn't care about the lengthy trip, though. At least after no other the beer SAU had provided for the entire trip to Greenbore had been consumed before reaching St. Louis.
The happy crowd that stumbled into the St. Louis bus depot must have prompted more than one traveler to wonder who those nuts were wearing red and blue hats and "Kick 'Em in the Butt Big Blue" buttons and singing KU fight songs at the top of their lungs.
By game time on Saturday, the KU students had
had a chance to recharge their batteries. Even sober they were hyped-up and ready for action.
They didn't have to wait long, either. As it turned in, Marquette's favorite cheer was the same one Kansas State fans used to yell at KU games before they learned better.
The first time Marquette fans screamed "Eat em' eat em' eat em', Marquette U," the KU students (and maybe a few alums) were ready. They spat back at the camera, which, much to the disbelief of the other 14,000 fans.
Murquette's cheer wasn't the only thing reminiscent of K-State. "We gonna win," the red-jacketed North Carolina State fans drew, in true form as they worked their team did against anything against UCLA.
KU's fans are in fine form through their stay in Greenhouses. It isn't every day you run across two guys sprawled in a third-floor hallway of a Holiday Inn in at three in the morning wolfing down fried chicken—from the remains of a room-service dinner left outside someone's room.
Norm Cook and Dale Greenehead for the dressing room after the team's 78-11 loss to UCLA. As Owens later put it, "We left the court with pride."