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THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2014
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MEN'S BASKETBALL
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After defeating Texas Tech on Senior Night, March 5, the Kansas Jayhawks were joined by the 10 consecutive Big 12 Championship trophies they own. Kansas needs three more to tie UCLA for the most consecutive conference titles.
GEORGE MULLINIX/KANSAN
Fans should enjoy the success before it's gone
Sometimes in the near future, the following time will come:
When it began it seemed impossible. For it to end is ust as shocking.
Finally, in 20? the Kansas basketball program didn't win the Big 12 championship. The Jayhawks' remarkable run is over. Year after year of conference championships and now, nothing. A blemish on the yearly banner raised in Allen Fieldhouse.
Instead of blaming the players or Bill Self, let's try something different. Let's try remembering and celebrating the golden age of Kansas basketball that included a decade where the Big 12 Trophy lived in Lawrence. Let's remember how this all
Let's remember how this all
started, with an Oklahoma State basketball player on the back end of the 2004-2005 season.
Not Bill Self.
Title No. 1 started with John Lucas III. The Cowboys came to Lawrence for one of those legendary games, one that still has a place in the pregame video all these years later. The winner would take a one-game lead in Big 12 play and could control its own destiny.
Lucas had only missed one shot all game when he took a
three at the buzzer to defeat the Jayhawks and take a one-game lead in Big 12 play. Instead, he missed and the streak was conceived.
The next year was a brand new team. Bill Self started his first year with a true crop of his own players. Names like Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush and Julian Wright were freshmen. The Jayhawks started the year with a 4-4 record. They weren't ranked in the top 25 until February. Still, Self corralled his team to somehow win a share of the conference title.
The true dynasty, the real year that established Kansas and Bill Self as a power, came in 2006-2007. The pieces from the young team one year before stuck around. Sherron
Collins and Darrell Arthur joined the group and Self had a top-10 team in Lawrence.
We all know what happened the following year: 2008, Mario's Miracle. A championship for the first time in 20 years.
Surely the drop-off would've come after that. Blake Griffin was a Sooner and Kansas lost all five of its starters. Somehow Self and Sherron Collins still bested the conference for consecutive title No. 5.
The story continued from there. Kansas won again and again and again. Over and over the Jayhawks won their conference championship.
There was 2012, when Self warned fans of a rebuilding year before the season
started. That team went to the National Championship game.
Somewhere along the way, Kansas fans started to change. In 2014, after that 10th consecutive championship, fans moaned after an unsatisfactory tournament performance. The offseason was filled with rumors and complaints. Expectations were too high and eventually that pressure got to the Jayhawks. It was too much.
So instead of weeping or panicking or going to message boards and Twitter to complain, just sit back and remember how good you had it.
Remember the players like Wayne Simien, Jeff Hawkins and Christian Moody who
kept the program afloat when it could have fallen in the mid-2000s. Or the Morris Twins, Tyrel Reed and Brady Morningstar, who all won an absurd amount of games in their years wearing crimson and blue. There was Jeff Withey, Travis Releford and Tyshawn Taylor. Names like Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embid are NBA studs now, but back then, they were developing and learning on James Naismith Court, all the while winning a conference championship.
Now that the streak is over, soak in how great it was for you.
After all, this day was inevitable.
— Edited by Katie Gilbaugh
c i n j a v c t o h o i s t
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