34 years ago in December In Madison Square Garden

For more pregame stuff on this Friday's game against St. John's, see the pinned "Schedule & Results" thread update.

This is the 14th meeting between St. John’s and KANSAS, with KU leading the series 8-5. This includes the very first game the two teams played in 1950 in MSG (which KANSAS won 52-51) and more importantly, the second game they ever played against each other, the 1952 NCAA Tournament title game won 80-63 by Phog Allen's Jayhawks!

Since Larry Brown took over in 1983, KANSAS is 4-1 against St. John's.
That one 76-50 loss in MSG in December 34 years ago was a heartbreaker.

Why?

sasnak wrote: Archie Marshall blew out his knee and was done for the season

Before that game, KANSAS had started the 1987-88 season 8-2, our only losses coming in the Maui Invitational, first to #11 Iowa and then to Illinois.

Then Archie blew out his left knee against St. John's, and thus began a season of misery that ended in elation.

From the LJW's KUSports.com - Gary Bedore: Kansas loses Marshall in St. John’s defeat; Senior forward wrecks left knee; Redmen win, 70-56 (edited by HE)
At the time of the injury, KU led St. John's 21-20. The Jayhawks maintained a 31-29 advantage at halftime, but an 11-point surge helped St. John's turn a 33-31 deficit into a 42-33 lead at 15:33... and St. John's went on to put it away.

"I don't want to take anything away from St. John's. We tried, but it was hard without Archie," said Brown.

Kansas was guilty of both bad field goal (32.7 percent to St. John's equally bad 34.5) and bad free throw shooting. The Jayhawks hit 19 of 31 free throws to the Redmen's 32 of 49.

"We didn't make free throws. That's plagued us all year," said Brown. "Especially on the road, you have to make 'em."

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Archie had famously in KANSAS history blown out his right knee in the 1986 Final Four game that KANSAS ended up losing to Duke (who went on to lose to eventual National Champion Louisville, a team KANSAS had defeated earlier in that season). He had missed all of the AY1986-87 season rehabbing and returned for his senior season only to be permanently sidelined when he injured his left knee against St. John's.

But Archie did see the court one last time in his senior year. In the very last regular season game, the Senior Game against Oklahoma State, Brown put a stationary Archie in the game late in the second half when the outcome was not in doubt and had him take a loooong and intentionally unguarded shot (kudos to 2nd year Cowboys coach Leonard Hamilton) that failed to go in. But Brown got what he wanted -- an opportunity for Archie to have his name in the box score and to walk off of the court in Allen Fieldhouse one last time as an active Jayhawk player, and the AFH crowd roared in appreciation for Brown and for Hamilton, but most of all for Archie.

And then his teammates -- having dedicated the rest of the season to Archie and then struggled through a January they would like to but never would forget -- went on a 15-4 winning spree from February through April that saw them avenge their final 3 AFH losses of the season in the NCAA Tournament. KANSAS fans know the story. Our Jayhawks went 6-0, defeating Kansas State in the Midwest Regional Final, Duke in the Final Four and Oklahoma -- KU winning for the first time in three meetings that year -- for the crown on April 4, 1988.

Would KANSAS have won it all in 1988 if Archie had not been hurt?

All we will ever know for certain is that he was an inspiration for his teammates the rest of that season, and they let him know it.

ROCK CHALK!