Kansas basketball honors its 1974 Final Four team at Allen Fieldhouse
LAWRENCE — Kansas basketball took some time Saturday to honor its past.
This was before a back-and-forth second half between the No. 2 Jayhawks and the TCU Horned Frogs. This was before what’s become a highly-scrutinized final minute of play. And it was before Kansas ultimately captured an 83-81 win in its Big 12 Conference opener against TCU.
At halftime, the Jayhawks recognized members of the 1974 Final Four team on the court at Allen Fieldhouse. There with them was their head coach that season, Ted Owens, who also guided the program to a Final Four appearance in 1971. And prior to the start of the game Owens, along with a player on the team in Tom Kivisto, shared their perspectives on the team and what it meant to return.
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“It’s always wonderful to be back, and even more special to be back and to see our guys,” Owens said. “Last night we had a great time together with our 1974 Final Four team, and one of the great privileges of coaching is to have a lifetime friendship with those young men that you’ve coached. And so, it was wonderful to see them and their families. It’s always terrific.”
While Owens noted that his 1971 Final Four team had its offense centered around a couple of guys, in 1974 that team didn’t know who the leading scorer was going to be on a given night. The balance the group had still stands out to him. That, as well as the fact that the team rebounded from a down season the year before to make the run it did.
Kansas finished 23-7 during the 1973-74 season and 13-1 in the Big Eight Conference, after going 8-18 overall and 4-10 against the Big Eight the season before. In the NCAA tournament in 1974, the Jayhawks topped Creighton and Oral Roberts to reach the Final Four. There, Kansas lost to eventual runner-up Marquette.
From Kivisto’s perspective, it took “a little bit of magic” to reach the Final Four after the season the program had the year before. That magical run also came from a team that, Kivisto said didn’t have a star, and instead teammates who just relied upon each other, passed the ball and played defense. To this day he considers a group a family.
“The team concept of winning championships makes everybody focus on that idea most importantly, and this team did that,” Kivisto said. “They put their-self second, and the team came first, and that’s very unique.”
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Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas basketball honors its 1974 Final Four team
