KU’s 125 years of basketball celebration to attract Jayhawk legends of the past

If all goes according to plan, Kansas’ four living men’s head basketball coaches will be among 200 or so former KU players, coaches and staff members attending the Jayhawks’ 125 years of basketball reunion game against Iowa State on Saturday afternoon at Allen Fieldhouse.

Ted Owens, Larry Brown, Roy Williams and current coach Bill Self have led the Jayhawk program for the last 59 seasons.

“I don’t know positively, (but) we are believing coach Williams will be back. We are believing coach Brown will be back. We reached out and are hopeful that coach Owens will for sure be back. You’ll have all the coaches who coached at Kansas 57, 58 years, hopefully in the same room. That is pretty cool,” current KU coach Self said on Monday’s weekly Hawk Talk radio show.

Owens coached at KU from the 1964-65 season until 1982-83. Brown coached at KU from 1983-84 until 1987-88. Williams led the KU program from 1988-89 until 2002-03 with Self now in his 20th year at KU.

Just a few of the names mentioned on Hawk Talk of the players expected back: Darrell Arthur, Mario Chalmers, Jalen Coleman-Lands, Sherron Collins, Nick Collison, Drew Gooden, Kirk Hinrich, Mitch Lightfoot, Paul Mokeski, Wayne Simien, Chris Teahan, Conner Teahan, Darnell Valentine and Walt Wesley. Obviously there will be many more.

“The guys that get jerseys hung — a lot can’t come because they are playing at the next level,” Self said of players such as Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers. NBA rookies Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun of KU’s 2022 NCAA title team likely won’t be back.

“When you finish playing, that’s when you have a few more Saturdays open,” Self added. “For example it’s easier for Mario Chalmers to come back now than five years ago because he’s not playing.”

KU holds this type of reunion every five years. The game will feature on-court recognition of the players, coaches and staff members in attendance. Tipoff will be 3 p.m. on Saturday.

“It’s always good to see everybody,” Self said. “One thing that’s harder to do than what people think ... is make sure everybody is included with all the different eras and coaches and generations.

“This is a fabulous way to do that. You can get a lot of people in one area where you can touch a lot of people in a three to four hour period. It’s going to be good.”

KU (14-1, 3-0) will play two games this week. First up is Tuesday’s game against Oklahoma (10-5, 1-2). Tip is 8 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse.

MJ Rice practices Monday

KU freshman guard MJ Rice, who missed Saturday’s 76-62 win at West Virginia because of back spasms, practiced Monday, Self said on his Hawk Talk radio show.

“Unless something happens with the back spasms, he’ll be available tomorrow,” Self said.

Kansas State impresses Self

Kansas State emerged as perhaps the biggest story in college basketball last week following road wins over Texas (116-103) and Baylor (97-95, overtime).

“K-State has had the best week anybody has had in our league probably in a long time, winning at Baylor and Texas in one week and averaging 105 points a game in doing so,” Self said of the Wildcats. “That’s so impressive against two teams that guard.”

K-State (14-1, 3-0), which opened Big 12 play with a home win over West Virginia, went from unranked to No. 11 in the AP Top 25, released Monday.

“It’s probably not a huge surprise to anyone that sees them every day. To somebody seeing them without seeing them since last year and with the roster changes — … even though you have some guys contributing who were there last year — in some ways gives credence to the job that coach Tang (Jerome, first year) and his staff are doing,” Self said.

KU moved from No. 3 to 2 in the AP Poll after winning at Texas Tech and West Virginia last week. Houston moved from 2 to 1. The Cougars had 34 first place votes; KU 22.

“The team that’s No. 1 in recent weeks hasn’t held onto it very long. Two is probably a good place to be,” Self said. “I am happy we are ranked high, happy for our league that all the teams in our league are ranked so high, but it’s still too early in the season for that really to matter very much. It does matter that we are off to a really good start.”

Houston, which will be in the Big 12 next season is No. 1 and KU is No. 2. The Big 12 also has ranked teams in Texas (10), K-State (11), Iowa State (14) and TCU (17). Baylor is receiving votes.