These nights better forgotten, KU would say

By DICK SNIDER
Capital-Journal columnist

Let us turn back the clock to the basketball season of 1938, to the time when Kansas was in Stillwater, Okla., to play the dedication game for the grand new arena at Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) called Gallagher Hall. Oklahoma Aggie fans shout, "Yes! Let us turn back the clock to that glorious time," but Jayhawkers everywhere shout back, "Forget it! Let's say it never happened."

But it did, and a meeting between these two teams was the perfect way to open the largest basketball palace in the Southwest, an athletic colossus compared favorably to New York's famous Madison Square Garden.

In stature, the teams matched the structure. Kansas was coached by Dr. Forrest C. "Phog" Allen, in the prime of his 48-year career. Kansas meant basketball in those days, and Phog was its self-appointed spokesman. He had something to say about everyone and everything in the game, and he never said in one word what he could say in 10 or more.

OKLAHOMA A&M was coached by Henry Payne Iba, who already was gaining national prominence as the "Iron Duke" of the Aggies. He was "Henry" or "Hank" or "Coach" to the uninitiated, but to his players, students and religiously loyal fans he was, and always would be, "Mister Iba."

Iba had a patented pattern of play that rival coaches and fans detested and maligned. The Aggies called it a "deliberate" style of offense, but the opposition called it keep-away, or letting the air out of the ball while everyone took a nap. Small wonder they always led the nation in defense.

Allen, of course, didn't have to be encouraged to speak out against the Iba system. What kinder voices called a "ball control" offense, Phog snorted was "the barnacle of basketball." He said Iba not only let the air out of the ball but also destroyed the meaning of basketball.

(Four years later, when Iba introduced 7-foot center Bob Kurland, and goal tending, into the game, Phog called Kurland "Henry Iba's Glandular Goon." He had a way with words, but strangely enough he didn't apply this thinking a decade later when he lured 7-foot, 2-inch Wilt Chamberlain to Kansas.)

Personally, Allen and Iba were friendly enough, but on a guarded basis. Allen once said, "Henry is a man of his word. It's not always easy to get his word on something, but if you do, you can count on it." And Iba said of Allen, "He'll let you know what he thinks."

The setting for the historic meeting of the two teams, and the two opposing schools of thought on how the game should be played, began to take shape when Iba, also director of athletics at A&M, talked the school into trying to talk the Oklahoma Legislature into funding a new arena.

THE STORY GOES that legislators were leery of spending a lot of money on a sports arena, so they softened the blow by also calling it a livestock exhibition hall and judging area.

It was named for a legendary wrestling coach, but it had 6,000 permanent seats for basketball; room for 3,000 more temporary seats; an 18,000 square foot playing floor, the largest in the country at the time; and 25,000 square feet of indoor practice space underneath.

So they played the inaugural game, and KU wished it had stayed in Lawrence. The Aggies led at halftime, 6-5 (yes, that's s-i-x to f-i-v-e) and went on to win, 21-15.

And that's not all. They played again the next night, making it one of the strangest two-game sets in college basketball history, and this time it was different. With 10 minutes to play the score was tied as both teams went on wild scoring sprees. It was 19-19.

With five minutes to play the Aggies led, 24-19, and Iba ordered the ball to be deflated. No more bounces. The final score was 25-19. Kansas didn't score in the last 10 minutes. The new arena had been properly dedicated.

Later in the season, Kansas defeated the Aggies in Lawrence, and the heated rivalry between the two schools continued. If anything, it got even hotter when the Aggies officially became Oklahoma State University of Agriculture and Applied Science in 1957, and were admitted to the new Big Eight conference.

IBA'S 43-YEAR COACHING career peaked when he won two national titles with Kurland in 1945-46. He also won the Big Eight championship in 1965, and later coached the U.S. Olympic team three times, winning the title twice and losing to Russia in the famous controversial final game.

Allen won his national championship in 1952 with Clyde Lovellette, only 3 inches shorter than Kurland, at center. He was denied the chance to coach Chamberlain through a full college career when he was forced to retire at 70. He said bitterly that he had reached "the age of statutory senility."

Iba created goal-tending with Kurland, and it made basketball a joke. Allen led the charge to have it outlawed, after losing the fight to raise the baskets from 10 feet to 12. And, he never again played two games in two nights in Stillwater.