March 22 , 2007

Time hasn't healed wound
Loss to Arizona in 1997 NCAA Tournament still haunts players from that top-ranked team.

By J. BRADY McCOLLOUGH
The Kansas City Star

SAN JOSE, Calif. | No matter how hard he tried, Ryan Robertson couldn't shake it.

The former Kansas guard watched from the United Center in Chicago last weekend as the Jayhawks blew through Niagara and Kentucky on their way to the Sweet 16.

Robertson wanted to get excited, to start thinking big like everybody else. Sadly, he just couldn't. Not after what he went through in March of 1997.

"They looked so good," says Robertson, who played at KU from 1996-99. "But I know how that feels. I know what it feels like to be on top of the world. Then you have one bad game, and it's over. It just scares me a little bit. I'll relax when they've won a national championship or they're in the Final Four."

Ten years later, the 1996-97 Kansas Jayhawks' pain lingers. Robertson is two years removed from his basketball career, working in marketing in the St. Louis area, and he still hurts because his No. 1 Kansas team was upset by Arizona in the Sweet 16.

"To me, it will never go away," says Robertson, then a sophomore. "It's only been 10 years, but it will be the most painful basketball loss or feeling I'll ever have. To this day, it sours my feeling about the NCAA Tournament as a whole."

As the 2006-07 Jayhawks prepare to face Southern Illinois tonight in the Sweet 16, it's hard not to revisit the Arizona loss. And not just because it's an anniversary.

Here are the facts: KU has won 13 straight games. The Jayhawks are loaded with NBA talent. They've been a hot pick to win the national championship, and they're playing a four seed and major underdog in the Sweet 16, just like in '97.

KU became the toast of the tournament's first weekend, dominating its opponents more than any other No. 1 seed. ESPN.com's front page on Tuesday afternoon showed a picture of Kansas players Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers, Julian Wright, Sherron Collins and Darrell Arthur, with a caption that read, "If we're replanting the NCAA seeds right now, the Jayhawks would be No. 1 overall."

All that attention and hype is great, but, Robertson says, the Jayhawks better ignore it. He knows from experience. The '97 team was even more of a sure bet to make a run than this year's group.

Instead, the Jayhawks finished the season 34-2 and watched as the Wildcats went on to bring home what many felt was certain to be Kansas' first national championship since 1988. KU's six seniors graduated with 115 career wins and no trips to the Final Four.

"It's just a scar on my career," Robertson says. "I have very fond memories of playing there, but that game pretty much overshadows everything."

***

The Arizona Wildcats finished fifth in the Pac-10 that season, so when they arrived in Birmingham, Ala., to play the No. 1 overall seed Jayhawks, nobody gave them much of a chance. Even their own fans.

"On the plane ride down there, an Arizona fan said, 'Take it easy on us tomorrow,' " recalls KU senior student Travis Robinett, then a 12-year-old going to the game with his family. "They weren't expecting to win the game."

Kansas had been No. 1 in the polls for months after starting the season 22-0. The Jayhawks boasted future NBA players Jacque Vaughn, Paul Pierce, Raef LaFrentz and Scot Pollard. After they got past Arizona, they would face either 10th-seeded Providence or 14th-seeded Tennessee-Chattanooga. It was a foregone conclusion they were headed to Indianapolis for the Final Four.

That is, until the game started. Arizona, stacked with talented guards Mike Bibby, Miles Simon and Michael Dickerson, jumped out to a 10-2 lead after converting five KU turnovers. Still, the KU fans didn't worry. Robinett remembers the Jayhawk fan contingent almost muting the smaller Arizona section during the first half.

On the court, however, the Jayhawks weren't at full strength. KU shooting guard Jerod Haase, a senior fan favorite who averaged 12 points per game, had been playing with a broken wrist all year long. The week before the Arizona game, the pain worsened.

"Two nights before," Haase says, "I was in as much pain as I'd ever been in my life. It got to the point where I couldn't hold the basketball."

Haase tried to play, but it became futile. He realized he was hurting the team by being out there. He played only 14 minutes in what would be his final game as a Jayhawk.

Haase could only watch as KU took the lead in the second half, only to give it away again. The Jayhawks trailed by 13 with three minutes to play, 75-62, and embarked on a furious comeback, going on a 20-8 run to bring the score to 83-82 Arizona with 21 seconds remaining. Bibby made two free throws to make it 85-82. Then, Kansas missed three three-point attempts in the final seconds.

The buzzer sounded on Haase's career.

"I'm still not over it," says Haase, now on Roy Williams' staff at North Carolina. "It may be a little bit sick and twisted, but that's something that's always haunted me, and it always will haunt me."

Haase has never gotten over his career ending without a trip to the Final Four. He also hasn't gotten over sitting out the final minutes due to injury.

"I always felt a little responsible," Haase says. "That's the way my career ended. I haven't had a long NBA career or anything like that to hang my hat on."

***

After the game was over and Roy Williams had told his KU team that they were still the nation's best, Williams hunkered down in a corner and looked glumly at the box score. He has said in past years that the '97 KU team simply deserved to go to the Final Four.

C.B. McGrath, a junior on that team, works with Haase on Williams' staff at North Carolina.

"It still lingers with him," McGrath says. "He is upset when he thinks about that '97 team. We had all the makings of a national-championship team."

Of course, the loss has stuck with fans, too. Robinett, who writes sports columns for the University Daily Kansan 10 years later, remembers KU fans staying in their seats for the first half of the next game. Some of them were crying, he says. Robinett won a ticket for this weekend's games in the KU student lottery and will be watching in the HP Pavilion tonight.

"The Arizona loss was the first painful Jayhawk memory for me," Robinett says. "I'm hoping it's not going to be a repeat this year."

KU fan Brent Pierce thought about it as he waited for the KU shootaround to start on Wednesday.

"That was probably the worst loss," Pierce says. "I'm still mad at Jacque Vaughn for passing up the shot."

Vaughn, KU's star point guard, passed up his team's second chance at a three-pointer in the final seconds because he thought his foot was on the line. He passed to Robertson, who shot a leaning three and missed. LaFrentz rebounded it, dribbled to the three-point line and hoisted a prayer. It clanged out, too.

Robertson doesn't think about his missed attempt very often. He thinks more about the bigger picture and his team's missed opportunity.

"It's typical," Robertson says, "that when I look back on my career at KU, what I generally tend to remember are the losses. The reason for that is that there just weren't many of them."

Ten years later, Arizona still hurts more than all the others.

"I have my demons," Robertson says. "Things are etched into my memory. I remember the feeling I felt afterward, the pain, the raw disappointment I still have."

To reach J. Brady McCollough, e-mail jmccollough@kcstar.com

J. Brady McCollough - jbrady@coveringsports.com (email) - 816-868-2621 (cell)