We hear frequent references to football or baseball as "a game of inches." Basketball can wear that label. The recent death of onetime Kansas cager Jerry Alberts reminded me that with an inch here and an inch there the rich Jayhawk basketball history would be even more illustrious, perhaps including at least three more NCAA titles.
With luck, maybe another inch or two, Alberts, who died at age 70 in Lincoln, Ill., would have sunk the shot that beat Indiana for the 1953 NCAA championship. As it was, the Hoosiers took home a 69-68 win and another title.
IU's Bob Leonard hit the free throw to put Indy ahead with the game nearly over. KU had one last chance but was without its All-American center, B.H. Born, who had fouled out. Bert stood 6-foot-9 on a stubby team that considered the 6-3 Alberts, his sub, tall. As things turned out, Jerry was forced to fire from the right baseline in the game in Kansas City, and Dame Fortune kept smiling on Indy.
That was one of at least three titles KU had well within reach.
Jerry, who became a high school coach in his home town of Lincoln, was one of three freshmen who broke in with the 1951-52 KU title team. The other two were 6-3 Bill Heitholt from Quincy, Ill., and 6-2 Larry Davenport of Newton. Because of the Korean War, frosh were eligible for that one season. As of 1952-53 you again had to be a sophomore to debut on a varsity club. Alberts, Heitholt and Davenport each were KU four-year men.
Then came 1957 and that heartbreaking 54-53 triple-overtime victory by North Carolina over Kansas in the title game at K.C. Again, a matter of inches.
Center Joe Quigg made the free throws that gave the Tar Heels their edge, but there was time for a KU pass toward the hoop for a Wilt Chamberlain slam and victory. Everybody knew if Uncle Dippy the Dunker got the ball, Kansas had the championship. But Ron Loneski's pass to the pivot was just errant enough that the alert Quigg diverted it into the hands of little Tommy Kearns. Tommy tossed the ball a thousand feet into the air as the clock ran out.
I've never been in an athletic dressing room as steeped in misery as KU's was that night. The Jayhawks felt they deserved to win and were devastated beyond anything I've ever seen in a jock venue. The experience was so painful Chamberlain didn't come back for years for fear he'd be chastised for "losing the big one." It took a jersey retirement to bring him home for the adulation he deserved and savored so deeply less than a year before his death. Others on that Jayhawk team admit they had nightmares for years because of the defeat.
Shouldn't have been that way. Carolina was rated No. 1 in the nation, KU second, and UNC was favored. It posted an unbeaten season; the fact Kansas played so well should have been a source of pride. But there was something special about that setback that never quite left anyone connected with it.
For a likely extra title No. 3, we go to the infamous rooking Kansas took in the 1966 NCAA Regional final at Lubbock, Texas. Talk about inches!
Texas Western got the win in double overtime after a long Jo Jo White bucket had beaten the Miners. Not! A referee erroneously ruled Joe had barely stepped on the sideline as he launched the ball and ruled the bucket invalid. Western then went on to take the NCAA title over Kentucky in the overhyped all-black-all-white contest that Kansas should have been in and would have won.
Supposedly that Kentucky-Western game proved the black athlete had arrived in college ball. Big, juicy joke! Bill Russell, K.C. Jones, Hal Perry and Gene Brown had hubbed San Francisco to NCAA titles in 1955 and 1956. Kansas started Chamberlain and Maurice King in 1957. The 1958 All-American team had Wilt, Bob Boozer, Elgin Baylor, Oscar Robertson and Guy Rodgers. If Kentucky's Adolph Rupp was so sobered by the T-Western caper in '66, how come he still didn't have a black on his roster until 1970 at the earliest?
KU's '66 team was as good as the 1997 club that also fell short. The '66 starters were 6-7 Ron Franz, 6-5 Al Lopes, 6-11 Walt Wesley, 6-3 White and 6-1 Del Lewis, with Bob Wilson, Riney Lochmann, Pat Davis and Rodger Bohnenstiehl off the bench.
You doubtless can think of other "games of inches" for Kansas in NCAA play, like the Raef LaFrentz poke that failed to connect at the gun when Arizona took home an 85-82 upset, or that incredible Hakim Warrick block of Mike Lee's trey that might have tied it against Syracuse last season.
How about that 1999 overtime loss to Kentucky when Ryan Robertson should have shot instead of pitching it to Kenny Gregory for a baseline floppola?
There was a 66-65 upset by Wichita State in 1981 tourney play; a 66-64 loss to Auburn in 1985; a 71-70 squeaker with UCLA in 1990; the 60-57 setback by Syracuse in 1996.
But it's those 1953, 1957 and 1966 setbacks, featuring three truly great teams, that really stick in my craw. Suppose that Lubbock referee hadn't bungled and KU had reached the title game against Kentucky's famed White Citizens Council. Would the fact KU featured minority guys like Al Lopes, Walt Wesley, Joe White and Bob Wilson have been hailed as the game that taught bigoted Adolph Rupp a lesson?
Probably not. Sports Illustrated has invested so much in perpetuating the Texas Western soap opera that it continues to overlook the Bill Russell era; the 1958 All-America team; the fact that nine of the top 10 men on the 1960-61 Kansas team were minority kids, including Delaware Dandy Dee Ketchum of Native American status.
Even Ditzy Dick Vitale has bought into the SI Myth of '66, although he should know better.