Kansas hopes to repeat success in national preseason tournament
By Brian James Kansan sportswriter
Kansas coach Roy Williams puts his undefeated Preseason National Invitational Tournament record on the line tonight at Allen Field House.
Kansas won all four of its games in the 1989 Preseason NIT, defeating top seeds St. John's, Louisiana State and Nevada-Las Vegas to win the tournament.
That was Williams' first and only experience with coaching the Jayhawks in the preseason tournament. It also marked the first time Kansas had played host to a firstround NIT game.
This year, two games of the Preseason NIT tournament will be played at the field house.
Williams said the field house was selected as one of the NIT sites because Kansas was one of the top eight seeds in the tournament.
"The fact that we can play at Allen Field House and have a lot of people in the stands and sell a lot of tickets for them
— yeah, that's important," he said. "But I don't think we're playing at home because its Allen Field House. I think we're playing at home because we've been pretty doggone good."
Kansas plays Western Michigan tonight. The winner will play either California or California-Santa Clara. The Preseason NIT semifinals and finals will be Nov. 24 and 26 in New York.
Williams said that although the tournament provided preseason game experience, he said the tournament took away from valuable practice time.
"I'd rather have the practices," he said. "I think you can gain so much more from practice times than in games."
Kansas had appeared only one other time since the Preseason NIT was created nine years ago, winning three of four games in 1985 under then coach Larry Brown.
In the 1989 Preseason NIT, Kansas beat teams with future
NBA players Shaquille O'Neal, Chris Jackson and Larry Johnson. Mark Randall, a forward on the Jayhawks, earned the tournament's Most Valuable Player Award.
Jeff Gueldner, a guard on Kansas' team that year, said playing against top-
Tonight's game
Western Michigan at Kansas
8:30 p.m. at Allen Field House
Radio: KLZR 105.9 FM
Television: KSMO Channel 62
WIBW Channel 13
KANSAN
rated teams helped build confidence.
"There was some indecision that year as to how good we would be," Gueldner said. "But we went out in the tournament and played in midseason form — and the season hadn't even started.
"It gave us the feeling that if we went out and executed the plays coach gave us, and if we played up to our potential, we could beat anybody," he said.
Gueldner said he thought that preseason games were helpful.
"The tournament starts so early that it's a chance to find out where the team is at and get things worked out," he said.
Gueldner said the field house had the type of atmosphere that NIT officials loved.
"The enthusiasm is so high," he said. "You can look at North Carolina's and Duke's places. But really, there's no better place than KU."
Most of the teams that appear in the Preseason NIT go on to play in the NCAA tournament at the end of the regular season, according to NIT statistics.
In the past five seasons, 11 of the 20 teams that were Preseason NIT semifinalists finished in the final Associated Press Top 10 poll.
Renee Knoeber / KANSAN
California's Jason Kidd passes around Kansas' Adonis Jordan during the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament play. Kansas has the possibility of facing California again during the NIT tournament, which starts tonight.
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November 17, 1993 University Daily Kansan • COLLEGE BASKETBALL PREVIEW
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