Sooners Can’t Stop One-Manning Gang : Kansas Runs, Then Walks to 83-79 Win

The blur that ran up and down the court in Kemper Arena Monday night was the University of Kansas basketball team leading the University of Oklahoma on a merry chase--and setting up those fleet-footed roadrunners for the quick change of pace that left them totally off balance.

Kansas Coach Larry Brown put the brakes on his team midway through the second half. While the Sooners were skidding around trying to figure out where the race had taken a turn that they missed, Kansas was coolly walking away with the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. basketball title.

With an 83-79 upset of Oklahoma, a team that had beaten the Jayhawks twice this season, Kansas completed an amazing tournament run that left it with a record of 27-11 and a surprise title. No NCAA champion has ever had so many losses. Kansas went into the tournament with one of the shakiest records and was the sixth-seeded team in the Midwest.

But as Danny Manning put it, after rolling up 31 points and 18 rebounds: “Look at us now.”

Oklahoma, the overwhelming favorite to win the final game after beating Arizona Saturday night, had been the No. 1 seed in the Southeast Regional. Oklahoma finished with a record of 35-4 and a sense of shock.

The disbelief set in when Brown started sending the ball up the court with his 6-10 superstar, Manning, so that the Sooner defender on the ball would be one of the frontcourt players and not one of the clever, ball-hawking Sooner guards. Manning was getting standing ovations from the Jayhawks among the crowd of 16,392 for doing nothing but walking the ball up the court and then holding it, out high, while seconds ticked off the shot clock.

Why the exultation for holding the ball while the game was still close? Because Oklahoma doesn’t like that and clearly didn’t know what to do about it.

Oklahoma Coach Billy Tubbs tried to say that he wasn’t worried about the change of pace. But he wasn’t fooling anyone.

Brown changed the game when he called a timeout with 13 minutes left and changed the pace. That’s why they call him Coach.

And that’s why he’s being sought by UCLA. Asked, after the game, to comment on whether he’d be going back to coach UCLA, Brown said, “I’m part of a national championship and I’m going to enjoy this. That’s not fair.”

It will be a fair question over the next few days, though, as Kansas and UCLA bid for the guy who orchestrated a beautiful game.

Brown had played it Billy’s way in the first half, and he had ended up tied, at 50-50, despite the Jayhawks’ 71% shooting. A tie in the second half, too, wouldn’t do.

When Brown called the timeout to change tactics with just over 13 minutes left to play, Oklahoma had a 63-60 lead. Oklahoma made it a 65-60 lead on an inside shot by center Stacey King, before Kansas started to close the gap.

Kansas took the lead for good right after the first standing ovation for the slowdown, when Manning took the ball in close to flip in a little hook shot that made it 69-68.

With 3:05 left and Kansas still playing that walk-it-up and hold-it-outside game, forward Chris Piper put the Jayhawks up, 77-71, when he just barely beat the shot-clock buzzer with an 8-footer from the baseline.

Kansas was clearly in charge. It would come down to free throws.

And Kansas can shoot free throws. The Jayhawks missed a couple of them, adding to the drama. But made the biggest ones.

Manning, a very likely hero, stepped to the line to shoot a one-and-one with 5 seconds to play and Kansas holding onto an 81-79 lead. He made both.

For the first time in about two hours, the outcome was not in question.

As big games go, the Kansas-Oklahoma final was a classic.

“I’ve never looked at any game I’ve been involved in in the Final Four before, but I’ll look at this one,” Brown said. “At one point, the referees were shaking their heads and grinning. It had all the drama. It was close. There were some phenomenal individual performances.”

Manning’s was the most phenomenal.

Even after picking up his third foul just 25 seconds into the second half on a very iffy lean-in as he shot the ball, Manning didn’t back off for a second. He played a total game the total time.

King, who played most of the way on Manning, saw it this way, though: “The first half was a great basketball game. In the second half, it seemed like the officials let Manning do whatever he wanted to do. He’s a great player and the player of the year, and I’m happy for him for that, but in his heart, he knows he should have fouled out. And that’s tough for us to overcome.”

King had 17 points for the Sooners, who were led by forward Dave Sieger. Sieger finished with 22 points--on one free throw and seven three-pointers. He scored six in the first half, but then went cold.

As a team, Oklahoma shot 42.8%.

Kansas shot 63.6% with forward Milt Newton going 6 for 6 to finish with 15 points. Guard Kevin Pritchard went 6 for 7 and finished with 13.

It’s really not a bad team that surrounds Manning. It works off Manning and toward Manning and in sync with Manning.

Brown said, “Danny has said all along that basketball is a team game and that we have a good team, and tonight shows it. . . . I don’t believe we would have been here if it were not for the others. But Danny makes it easier for the others to do well.”

The Kansas guards played well against the Sooners’ vaunted full-court pressure, often taking advantage of the press with passes that beat the Sooners’ defense back in the first half. Tubbs even went away from his full-court pressure for a while in the second half and gained the lead. But he went back to it.

There really wasn’t much the Sooners could do once Kansas had the lead and Manning had the ball.

Asked if he had some trouble holding the ball and not shooting during the final minutes, especially when he saw some tempting one-on-one matchups that looked like sure points, Manning said, “Yeah, I was excited. It was hard to stay under control.”

But he did.

Tournament Notes

The all-tournament team was led, of course, by Danny Manning of Kansas, who also was named most outstanding player. Milt Newton of Kansas also was named to the team, along with Stacey King and Dave Sieger of Oklahoma and Sean Elliott of Arizona. . . . Kansas last won the NCAA basketball title in 1952. . . . Only Kansas Coach Larry Brown and his former coach at North Carolina, Frank McGuire, have led two different schools to the NCAA championship game. McGuire led St. John’s to the championship game in 1952 before losing to Kansas, and he won the title in 1957 when North Carolina beat Kansas. . . . Brown won the title on his third trip to the Final Four. His UCLA team lost to Louisville in 1980 and his Kansas team lost to Duke in 1986. . . . The 100 points scored Monday night in a 50-50 first half was a championship game record, the old mark was 99 in the second half of the Kentucky-Duke game in 1978. . . . The last time Kansas played in a title game was in the loss to North Carolina in 1957. The final score was 54-53 in triple overtime.