THIRD IN A SERIES

DESIGNATED NOTE: This week, we will bring you remembrances of the four Final Fours we covered during the 1980s, back when authority figures allowed us to do such things. Today: The 1988 Final Four at Kemper Arena in Kansas City.

Kansas had a really nice player in Danny Manning, but the Jayhawks were a 6-seed out of their regional and a heavy underdog to No. 1-seed Oklahoma, 34-3 and winners in 21 of their last 22 games before these two met in the 1988 NCAA Finals.

So the first surprise after the final buzzer was the score — Kansas an 83-79 winner, winner, Jayhawk dinner — and the second surprise was how much fun it had been.

My seat as a writer for The New Orleans Times-Picayune was about even with the basket where Manning got a crucial rebound off a free-throw miss and put it back in for a late lead that the Sooners could not overcome. At some point that night during a break in play, I’d looked at my pilot, Pete Finney, a Louisiana Sports Hall of Famer and Times-Picayune columnist, and asked him how much longer he planned to work; he’d been the paper’s lead columnist for more than 30 years then, and would work for another 20-plus.

“Work?” he said. “This ain’t work!”

He was so awesome.

As was the game.

It’s a long story and nobody except aspiring youngsters would care, but sportswriting is work, no matter what Mr. Finney would lead you to believe. But that night, it wasn’t. Anybody who covered the game would have paid to see it if they’d known what was going to happen. Even as cheap as sportswriters are.

The Jayhawks, who played deliberately, had lost twice by 8-ish points both times to run-and-fun Oklahoma during the Big Eight season. With Manning doing most of the heavy lifting, they defined a One Man Team. Manning was the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player; he had 31 points and 18 rebounds against the Sooners.

But everyone contributed. They had to. It was 50-50 at the half.

FIFTY to FIFTY. At halftime.

Some perspective: In the 1988 Final Four semifinals, Kansas led Duke, 38-27 at the half, and OU led Arizona, 37-29, at the half. (More perspective: Saturday night in a 2018 Regional Final, Michigan led Florida State, 27-26, at the half.)

The Jayhawks could not stop two things: turning the ball over (18 after 25 minutes) and hitting shots (22 of 29 in the first half). That is 75-percent shooting if you’re keeping score at home.

Things slowed a bit in the second half because these people were people, after all, even though they were college students, but it never once got boring. And it was loud the whole night. The Big 8 Tournament had been played here in Kemper Arena in Kansas City just a couple weeks before—of course Oklahoma had won it—so there was plenty of rooting interest on both sides.

Note: This marked the next-to-last Final Four played in a “small” arena. It was in Kemper Arena (capacity 19,500, but the NCAA tells me only 16,392 attended; the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, site of the 1996 Final Four, is roughly the same size as Kemper, something my West Monroe friend John alerted me to). Kemper was the home of the Kansas City Kings that guys of my generation so enjoyed (Nate Archibald!), but the Tournament had outgrown anything short of massive gyms, like the Kingdome (59,166 capacity 39,187, were there), where the Final Four would be played in 1989, or the Alamodome (72,000), where the 2018 champion will be crowned.

TOMORROW: Teddy Allen covers the 1989 Final Four in Seattle

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT (WHERE WERE YOU?!?!)
1982 Final Four (New Orleans)
1986 Final Four (Dallas)