Friends forever: Evansville’s Sam Cunliffe visited KU pals in Lawrence last month
Best of friends with Chris Teahan and Mitch Lightfoot, former Kansas basketball guard Sam Cunliffe headed to Lawrence last month to hang out with his pals and watch them play in the Big 12 postseason tournament.
His Evansville Purple Aces’ season had ended following a first-round loss in the Missouri Valley Conference league tournament in St. Louis, freeing the 6-foot-8 junior combo guard to take a little spring break and support some of his best buddies who never got to play in their league tourney because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Chris and Mitch … we’ll be friends forever,” Cunliffe told The Star in a phone interview last week from Denver, where he’s spending the pandemic lockdown with his girlfriend, who he met at KU.
“I love Kansas,” added Cunliffe, who transferred to KU from Arizona State second semester of the 2016-17 school year. He played at KU second semester in 2017-18, transferred to Evansville and sat out the 2018-19 season before averaging 11.2 points and 4.1 rebounds a game for the Purple Aces in 2019-20.
“There’s so much love with the people there (at KU). Scott Ward (associate AD) text me the other day and I was, ‘Wow.’ I still talk to coach Howard (Jerrance, assistant) on Instagram and the other coaches. Going back last month, people remembered me and came up to talk to me.
“Probably the coolest thing,” Cunliffe continued, “was hearing from coach (Bill) Self after we beat Kentucky this season. That made me feel good.”
Self text congratulations to Cunliffe after the Seattle native scored 17 points and grabbed six rebounds in the Purple Aces’ 67-64 victory over the then-No. 1-ranked Wildcats on Nov. 12 in Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky.
Cunliffe, who had 15 points the first half to keep 25-point underdog Evansville (9-23, 0-18 Missouri Valley), hit a pair of pivotal free throws with 6.8 seconds left and the Aces up by one point to assure a victory.
“My thing was I knew I was probably the least nervous or least scared going into that game,” Cunliffe said, drawing on his experience being involved in big games at KU.
“I didn’t really care who we were playing or where we were playing. I just knew they were definitely beatable. I felt nobody could stop me, especially playing Kentucky. They will guard you straight up. We got deeper in the year and teams started zoning and double-teaming me.
“To come out with a win in Rupp when they were No. 1 was cool,” Cunliffe added. “I had that sense people were like, ‘What?’ I sensed they were pretty impressed,” he added of media members who flooded him with questions in the interview room after the game. “A lot of people didn’t know I was that good, that I had the type of ability to score like that. People knew that day.”
Evansville that day was coached by former Kentucky player Walter McCarty, who would up getting placed on administrative leave on Dec. 26 and was fired on Jan. 21 because of alleged misconduct off the court. Assistant coach Bernie Seltzer took over as interim, giving way to current coach Todd Lickliter, who was hired immediately after McCarty was officially let go on Jan. 21.
“We were 9-4,” Cunliffe said, “then lost our coach. Put it this way even Kansas ... if Kansas lost coach Self right before conference play, it’d be tough. Even for the best team in the country it’d be tough.. The coach defines your role. Now he’s gone and you are trying to find a whole new rhythm. It’s tough.
“Our fans never gave up on us,” Cunliffe said, noting he is looking forward to playing his senior year for former Butler coach Lickliter. He has no intention of transferring.
“I don’t need to go anywhere else. The coach I have trusts me, likes me a lot and will put me in the best position and I’ll try to put him in the best position. There’s no reason to leave (as possible graduate transfer),” Cunliffe said.
Happy at Evansville even amid last season’s turmoil, Cunliffe tried to keep track of KU’s season from afar.
“The only way I thought somebody could possibly beat them (in NCAAs) is if a team pulled a Villanova and rained threes. You can always lose if somebody rains threes,” Cunliffe said. “They (Jayhawks) had the best chance (had tourney not been canceled because of coronavirus). KU had the best team.”
He was impressed watching the Jayhawks on TV. He never got to watch the Jayhawks in person, the Big 12 tourney getting canceled on the day of the Jayhawks’ quarterfinal game against Oklahoma State on March 12 at the Sprint Center.
“When I came back to Lawrence (last month) we were talking about Doke,” Cunliffe said of Udoka Azubuike. “Doke looked different. He was more quiet and reserved when I was there. Watching him this year he looked like a beast. He developed into who he was eventually going to be.”
“Devon obviously is awesome,” he added of point guard Devon Dotson. “He had a great year.”
Cunliffe especially enjoyed following the season of junior combo guard Marcus Garrett, since Cunliffe and Garrett guarded each other at practice during the 2017-18 season.
Garrett was named 2020 Naismith defensive player of the year.
“I’m not surprised at all,” Cunliffe said of Garrett becoming a force on defense. “His ability to take somebody’s ball without fouling was unreal to me. He was so good at the drills. He had a knack for defense when he got to Kansas. He made me a better ballhandler. You had to be going against him. Offensively he’s great at getting the ball in the right place, getting to the rim.”
Asked if he thought combo guard Garrett would be able to play the point effectively during Garrett’s senior season, Cunliffe said: “Definitely. He knows how to lead a team. He knows what coach Self wants.”
Cunliffe also plans on playing some point as well as shooting guard next season at Evansville.
“If next year goes as planned I think I could be a draft pick,” said Cunliffe. He hit 39% percent of his shots last season, including 30.8% of his threes. He hit 73.2% of his free throws. “I will take it as far as I can. I love basketball and think my top potential is NBA player. I’m taking it a day at a time. I think no matter what I will have some options.”
If he fails to realize his NBA dreams, Cunliffe could always try to play in the NBA G-League or Europe or become a full-time broadcaster.
That’s right. The Communications major has two years experience working Evansville sporting events as a color analyst for ESPN3’s online streaming service.
“It had been cleared (with the NCAA),” Cunliffe said. “I was doing women’s basketball games, soccer, baseball, softball, I’ve done all those. It is something I would do when I am done playing. It’s a really fun job, to sit and talk about sports.
“I feel really comfortable,” he added of working games. “It’s something I honestly think if I had a couple days to prepare I could do an NBA game right now. It kind of comes naturally to me.”
Of Cunliffe’s future as a broadcaster, Tom Benson, instructor of Cunliffe’s COMM-240 “Live Events” course told the Evansville Courier and Press: “When he’s done playing basketball, he could be a professional announcer for the rest of his life if he wanted to. We told him, ‘Look, if you work with us, we’ll get you trained up and then you go off and play basketball. When you’re done, you’ll be able to have that experience to fall back on.’
“That’s what we’re trying to do is provide him with that opportunity and experience so that when he’s done playing basketball – whenever that is – he can try to utilize that background to get a job in the broadcasting profession,” Benson told the Courier and Press.
Cunliffe conceded to The Star he’s had a somewhat eventful college career, having attended three schools. Yet he’s managed to enjoy “all the different experiences.”
“I do have times I sit and wish maybe I’d done things different or things had gone a different way. But I can’t say I have any regrets, because of who it has made me become, all the different situations. I like what it’s done for me. I’m in the right mental place now,” he said.
This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 10:54 AM with the headline "Friends forever: Evansville’s Sam Cunliffe visited KU pals in Lawrence last month."
