You’re probably about to read more about Kansas basketball than you care to in the next few minutes, but trust me – this is a Missouri basketball feature.
KU came into the season ranked in the Top 5 of most national polls and was a Final Four favorite for many college hoops pundits, including Jay Bilas of ESPN.
The Jayhawks lacked inside depth, but with five-star freshman center/forward Billy Preston poised to help out, a thin, eight-man rotation for coach Bill Self didn’t seem too great an obstacle to overcome.
But Preston turned out to be the Jayhawk that never really was. He played in the exhibition game against Missouri, but was held out of the victory over Kentucky in Chicago in early November because he missed classes.
He was then involved in a single-car accident on Jayhawk Boulevard (the heart of the KU campus) that left two tires on his Dodge Charger flat. The car was towed. So was Preston’s KU career.
He never played again as the school – and then the NCAA – addressed who the car’s owner is and how Preston ended up behind its wheel. Days became weeks, then weeks became two months. He practiced and traveled with the team, but never played.
He signed with the professional team BC Igokea in Bosnia. KU has been an up-and-down team with a seven-man rotation ever since.
I told you all that to tell you this. Missouri and KU are destined to play in the 2018 NCAA Tournament. I think the Selection Committee would have made this happen if Mizzou had advanced to the tournament, regardless of the exhibition game in late October.
All Missouri has to do is make the tournament. Well, KU also has to regroup after its third home loss of the season – a shocker to an undermanned Oklahoma State team last Saturday – and hold at least a No. 3 seed entering the tournament.
Joe Lunardi’s weekly Bracketology breakdown for ESPN currently has Missouri as the No. 10 seed in the Midwest Region. The Tigers would play the No. 7 Michigan Wolverines in Wichita. The winner would take on the winner of No. 2 seed KU and 15th seed UC Santa Barbara.
Missouri’s late season charge includes a road victory at Alabama and last week’s home win over Kentucky. KU has a challenging schedule ahead, which includes road games at Texas Tech and Iowa State and home tilts against Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia.
KU could easily slide in its seeding – while also failing to win an NCAA record 14 consecutive conference titles. The Jayhawks are tied with John Wooden era UCLA teams with 13 straight.
If they tumble, it could impact the Mizzou-KU tournament game. The Tigers have done their part to set up the matchup. They need to not drop a game to an underdog. KU must do the same.
Both teams might lose their spot in Wichita and be sent to other regions. They might meet in a Sweet 16 game. But my guess is KU and Mizzou will spend a March Madness afternoon or evening trying to knock each other out of the tournament.
I didn’t want to play Missouri in the exhibition game. I’d enjoy playing them in the tournament. They deserve it and so do long-suffering Tigers fans.
Oh. KU will win.
The first big story
In fall of 1977, a guy named Dan Brogan and I were members of the Kirkwood Call newspaper staff. Recognized as the best high school newspaper in the nation for several years running, we were anxious to win similar recognition.
Kirkwood High School had a staff member that had been an All-American high school basketball player during his years as a Pioneer, and was now serving as an assistant wrestling coach.
Brogan and I interviewed coaches and the athletic director and the former player. I was a basketball manager for coach Paul Meyer, who was the varsity head coach.
He and the other coaches were honest in saying that there simply was not a position for assistant coaches for either the sophomore or varsity teams. Back then, if you had had two paid coaches, you were lucky.
The story which ran in the Call carried the headline “A Needless Waste of Basketball Talent.”
It won statewide recognition as the Best Sports Story of the year as judged by the Missouri Press Association. It also won the newspaper valuable points and helped the Call again be named the nation’s best.
Three years later in the summer of 1981, Brogan and I were interns with the Cincinnati Enquirer. He attended Indiana and I was at KU.
I spent the next 11 years working with Gannett, which owned the Enquirer and Brogan worked for the Chicago Tribune and then created Denver magazine.
We both remember that first award-winning piece of work. And we’ll never forget who the subject of the article was.
It was Charles “Cookie” Thornton.
Lankford on HOF ballot
I’ve been harping on this for two years, and now the local media is finally on board.
Suddenly, it has been realized that Ray Lankford was not only absent from the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame – he hadn’t even been nominated. What a crock of you-know-what.
Lankford is on the ballot this year along with returning nominees Keith Hernandez, Scott Rolen and Jason Isringhausen. Other first-time ballot members are Vince Coleman, Lee Smith and John Tudor.
I don’t trust Cardinal fans to select Lankford over Hernandez, Rolen or Isringhausen. I think it will be up to the front office and the red-ribbon committee to honor Lankford in 2018. He’s the most deserving of all the players on the ballot based on what he accomplished as a long-time Cardinal.
I’ve run these statistics once (or twice) a year since 2016, so here is why Lankford’s snub is ridiculous.
Lankford is the only Cardinal to hit 20 home runs and steal 20 bases in more than one season –he accomplished the feat five times (1992, 1995 –1998.)
He was among the Cardinal Top 10 in home runs (third with 228), stolen bases (fifth with 250), runs scored (eighth with 928), runs batted in (eighth with 829), and bases on balls (fourth with 780) when he retired.
Lankford hit more home runs at Busch Stadium II (123) than any other player. He closed his career with a pinch-hit home run in his final Major League at bat on October 3, 2004.
Alvin A. Reid was honored as the 2017 “Best Sports Columnist – Weeklies” in the Missouri Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest. He is a panelist on the Nine Network program, Donnybrook, is a weekly contributor to “The Charlie Tuna Show” on KFNS and can also be heard on Frank Cusumano’s “The Press Box.” His Twitter handle is @aareid1.
