personally , wouldnt touch this game, could see either team winning, but this was interesting article from espn ...
Tulsa's 'toughest ticket' since Elvis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Pete Thamel
Special to ESPN.com
TULSA, Okla. -- It all began on a balmy day, atop a Hawaiian island after a made putt on a perfectly manicured green.
Bill Self, then the coach at Tulsa, was golfing with Kansas coach Roy Williams on one of those lavish Nike coaching junkets. While engaged in an, ahem, friendly match against Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and Bowling Green's Dan Dakich, Self waited for the perfect time to query Williams about Tulsa landing a home game with Kansas.
After he and Williams won a hole, Self seized the moment and popped the question. Williams agreed to a two-for-one series, and not a moment too soon.
Antonio Reed is one of five Tulsa seniors who've won 89 games over the past three-plus seasons.
"It's a good thing he'd already said 'yes'" says Self, "because I three-jacked the last hole and we lost the match."
Tulsa hosts Kansas on Wednesday night in an unlikely matchup with improbable beginnings. Four years, three coaches and two TU losses to KU, Tulsa gets its marquee home game.
And just because Kansas stumbles in to the Reynolds Center on a three-game Division I losing streak doesn't diminish what this game means to Tulsa.
"This is the town's toughest ticket," says TU assistant coach Steve Cooper, "since Elvis played the Mabee Center."
Folks in T-Town got all shook up for the King in 1976, and that's about the time when connections for this game began hatching.
Much due to its success, scheduling at Tulsa is always tricky business. TU has played in seven of the last nine NCAA Tournaments, captured the 2001 NIT title and won 85 games, second only to Duke, the past three seasons. Still, it's almost been easier to find a skyscraper in Enid than lure a big-name school to town.
While coaches around the nation know Tulsa belongs in college hoops' top echelon (voting the Hurricane 18th in their latest poll), the fickle factors of television suitors and fan perception have put a glass ceiling on the Golden Hurricane. (To wit: TU couldn't even land a national TV audience for the Kansas game).
TU has already won at Arkansas and games loom this season with both Iowa (home) and Gonzaga (road), giving Tulsa its best schedule in years. While a win over Kansas won't launch TU through the glass ceiling, it'll certainly give them a Herculean push.
"We're trying to make our way to get with the Kentuckys, the Indianas and UCLAs," says Tulsa head coach John Phillips. "With this schedule, we've got an opportunity to make a move into that top echelon. It takes time, but you can't do it without a schedule like this."
Self struggled scheduling for the three years he coached at Tulsa, the final of which he led the Golden Hurricane to the Elite Eight. He says that it really comes down to perception.
"Let's take a team like Syracuse, they're not going to go home-and-home with Tulsa," says Self. "There's no way their fans would understand going to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and not winning. You've got to do what's best for your program. You've got to schedule people that bring something to the table."
Phillips credits the intricate ties between the two schools for keeping the game after Self skipped town for Illinois in 2000. As much as Self's on-course courtship is responsible for the game, its roots really snake back to countless twists of basketball fate that occurred as long as 20 years ago.
Self served as a graduate assistant to Larry Brown at KU in the mid-80's. Phillips coached two players at Tulsa's Edison High School that Brown recruited to KU -- Kevin Pritchard and Archie Marshall.
Pritchard started on Brown's 1988 NCAA championship team and then played two years for Williams. The Pritchard connection initially linked Phillips and Williams, and the two got to know each other even better through Big 8 circles when Phillips hooked on as an assistant at Oklahoma State.
Phillips credits those lifetime connections, not to mention Williams' kindness, for allowing Tulsa to pull a coup and schedule the Jayhawks.
"Scheduling at Tulsa is very, very difficult," Phillips says. "To be honest, when I talk to people in the national media, they don't understand it. It's not like I just get on the phone with Kansas and say, 'We'd like to play you.'"
For Kansas to travel to a smaller school like TU, there's one of two factors involved -- a homecoming for a player or a relationship with a coach.
" Scheduling at Tulsa is very, very difficult. To be honest, when I talk to people in the national media, they don't understand it. It's not like I just get on the phone with Kansas and say, 'We'd like to play you.' "
? John Phillips, Tulsa head coach
Kansas played in North Dakota last year for Jeff Boschee and just signed a two-for-one with Nevada-Reno for incoming big-man recruit David Padgett, who hails from Reno. Over the years its played teams like Princeton and Penn in the same vein its playing Tulsa.
"Roy doesn't usually like to play his friends," says KU associate athletic director Richard Konzem, whose in charge of scheduling. "But if one says that it'll help their program if Kansas comes and plays, he usually does."
After getting blown out at Allen Fieldhouse two years ago, TU kept things close last year at Kemper Arena. After Tulsa tied the game with two minutes remaining, Kansas hung on for a 93-85 win. "We'll see you in the Tournament," former KU star Drew Gooden told the Hurricane players during postgame handshakes.
While the Golden Hurricane didn't see the Jayhawks, they still upset Marquette in one of those notorious 12-5 seeding games.
Tulsa now has five seniors, a solid measure of national recognition and a real chance to knock off Williams' club, which is dogged with depth question marks.
"The Kansas game is our chance," says TU senior guard Antonio Reed. "It's our chance to show everyone what we can do."
Walking down the street in Manhattan with his wife last fall, two men recognized Phillips, who was wearing a Tulsa basketball polo shirt.
"Hey, you're the coach of Tulsa," one said. "You've got those quick little guards."
It's moments like that that make Phillips believe that Tulsa is creeping into the national conscience. But for every small sign, there are terse reality checks.
TU assistants Pooh Williamson and Kwanza Johnson got one while cruising through a mall on a JUCO recruiting trip in nearby Ft. Smith, Ark.
They stopped at a sporting goods store and saw the typical college teams represented -- North Carolina, Arizona and Kansas. But then, Williamson's jaw dropped when he saw gear from TU's WAC archrival, Fresno State, and burgeoning nemesis, Gonzaga.
"We started looking around, and we didn't see any Tulsa gear," says Williamson. "Right there in our backyard. I guess you know you've arrived when you see your gear in a mall somewhere in Arkansas when you're sitting back in Spokane, Washington, or Frenso, California."
On Wednesday night, Tulsa gets another chance to pry its way into the nation's conscience. On Wednesday night, a lifetime of connections and a dash of serendipity have yielded Tulsa with all it's ever wanted -- an opportunity to prove itself on the highest level.
Tulsa's 'toughest ticket' since Elvis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Pete Thamel
Special to ESPN.com
TULSA, Okla. -- It all began on a balmy day, atop a Hawaiian island after a made putt on a perfectly manicured green.
Bill Self, then the coach at Tulsa, was golfing with Kansas coach Roy Williams on one of those lavish Nike coaching junkets. While engaged in an, ahem, friendly match against Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and Bowling Green's Dan Dakich, Self waited for the perfect time to query Williams about Tulsa landing a home game with Kansas.
After he and Williams won a hole, Self seized the moment and popped the question. Williams agreed to a two-for-one series, and not a moment too soon.
Antonio Reed is one of five Tulsa seniors who've won 89 games over the past three-plus seasons.
"It's a good thing he'd already said 'yes'" says Self, "because I three-jacked the last hole and we lost the match."
Tulsa hosts Kansas on Wednesday night in an unlikely matchup with improbable beginnings. Four years, three coaches and two TU losses to KU, Tulsa gets its marquee home game.
And just because Kansas stumbles in to the Reynolds Center on a three-game Division I losing streak doesn't diminish what this game means to Tulsa.
"This is the town's toughest ticket," says TU assistant coach Steve Cooper, "since Elvis played the Mabee Center."
Folks in T-Town got all shook up for the King in 1976, and that's about the time when connections for this game began hatching.
Much due to its success, scheduling at Tulsa is always tricky business. TU has played in seven of the last nine NCAA Tournaments, captured the 2001 NIT title and won 85 games, second only to Duke, the past three seasons. Still, it's almost been easier to find a skyscraper in Enid than lure a big-name school to town.
While coaches around the nation know Tulsa belongs in college hoops' top echelon (voting the Hurricane 18th in their latest poll), the fickle factors of television suitors and fan perception have put a glass ceiling on the Golden Hurricane. (To wit: TU couldn't even land a national TV audience for the Kansas game).
TU has already won at Arkansas and games loom this season with both Iowa (home) and Gonzaga (road), giving Tulsa its best schedule in years. While a win over Kansas won't launch TU through the glass ceiling, it'll certainly give them a Herculean push.
"We're trying to make our way to get with the Kentuckys, the Indianas and UCLAs," says Tulsa head coach John Phillips. "With this schedule, we've got an opportunity to make a move into that top echelon. It takes time, but you can't do it without a schedule like this."
Self struggled scheduling for the three years he coached at Tulsa, the final of which he led the Golden Hurricane to the Elite Eight. He says that it really comes down to perception.
"Let's take a team like Syracuse, they're not going to go home-and-home with Tulsa," says Self. "There's no way their fans would understand going to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and not winning. You've got to do what's best for your program. You've got to schedule people that bring something to the table."
Phillips credits the intricate ties between the two schools for keeping the game after Self skipped town for Illinois in 2000. As much as Self's on-course courtship is responsible for the game, its roots really snake back to countless twists of basketball fate that occurred as long as 20 years ago.
Self served as a graduate assistant to Larry Brown at KU in the mid-80's. Phillips coached two players at Tulsa's Edison High School that Brown recruited to KU -- Kevin Pritchard and Archie Marshall.
Pritchard started on Brown's 1988 NCAA championship team and then played two years for Williams. The Pritchard connection initially linked Phillips and Williams, and the two got to know each other even better through Big 8 circles when Phillips hooked on as an assistant at Oklahoma State.
Phillips credits those lifetime connections, not to mention Williams' kindness, for allowing Tulsa to pull a coup and schedule the Jayhawks.
"Scheduling at Tulsa is very, very difficult," Phillips says. "To be honest, when I talk to people in the national media, they don't understand it. It's not like I just get on the phone with Kansas and say, 'We'd like to play you.'"
For Kansas to travel to a smaller school like TU, there's one of two factors involved -- a homecoming for a player or a relationship with a coach.
" Scheduling at Tulsa is very, very difficult. To be honest, when I talk to people in the national media, they don't understand it. It's not like I just get on the phone with Kansas and say, 'We'd like to play you.' "
? John Phillips, Tulsa head coach
Kansas played in North Dakota last year for Jeff Boschee and just signed a two-for-one with Nevada-Reno for incoming big-man recruit David Padgett, who hails from Reno. Over the years its played teams like Princeton and Penn in the same vein its playing Tulsa.
"Roy doesn't usually like to play his friends," says KU associate athletic director Richard Konzem, whose in charge of scheduling. "But if one says that it'll help their program if Kansas comes and plays, he usually does."
After getting blown out at Allen Fieldhouse two years ago, TU kept things close last year at Kemper Arena. After Tulsa tied the game with two minutes remaining, Kansas hung on for a 93-85 win. "We'll see you in the Tournament," former KU star Drew Gooden told the Hurricane players during postgame handshakes.
While the Golden Hurricane didn't see the Jayhawks, they still upset Marquette in one of those notorious 12-5 seeding games.
Tulsa now has five seniors, a solid measure of national recognition and a real chance to knock off Williams' club, which is dogged with depth question marks.
"The Kansas game is our chance," says TU senior guard Antonio Reed. "It's our chance to show everyone what we can do."
Walking down the street in Manhattan with his wife last fall, two men recognized Phillips, who was wearing a Tulsa basketball polo shirt.
"Hey, you're the coach of Tulsa," one said. "You've got those quick little guards."
It's moments like that that make Phillips believe that Tulsa is creeping into the national conscience. But for every small sign, there are terse reality checks.
TU assistants Pooh Williamson and Kwanza Johnson got one while cruising through a mall on a JUCO recruiting trip in nearby Ft. Smith, Ark.
They stopped at a sporting goods store and saw the typical college teams represented -- North Carolina, Arizona and Kansas. But then, Williamson's jaw dropped when he saw gear from TU's WAC archrival, Fresno State, and burgeoning nemesis, Gonzaga.
"We started looking around, and we didn't see any Tulsa gear," says Williamson. "Right there in our backyard. I guess you know you've arrived when you see your gear in a mall somewhere in Arkansas when you're sitting back in Spokane, Washington, or Frenso, California."
On Wednesday night, Tulsa gets another chance to pry its way into the nation's conscience. On Wednesday night, a lifetime of connections and a dash of serendipity have yielded Tulsa with all it's ever wanted -- an opportunity to prove itself on the highest level.
