Remember when ... KU’s ‘Downtown’ Terry Brown scored 42 points in win over N.C. State?
Kansas has played, and defeated, North Carolina State twice in the NCAA Tournament in the two most important games in the schools’ all-time men’s basketball series, which the Jayhawks lead 12-1 entering Saturday’s 2:15 p.m. nonconference clash at Allen Fieldhouse.
KU tripped the Wolfpack, 60-57, on March, 23, 2012, in a Sweet 16 contest in St. Louis. That’s the game in which Thomas Robinson scored 18 points and grabbed 15 rebounds and Jeff Withey blocked 10 shots for a KU team that ultimately reached the NCAA title game where the Jayhawks fell to Kentucky, 67-59, in New Orleans. KU ended the season of an N.C. State team led by C.J. Leslie’s 18 points.
The Jayhawks also defeated the Wolfpack, 75-67, in an Elite Eight contest on March 23, 1986 in Kansas City’s Kemper Arena.
Danny Manning scored 22 points, while Greg Dreiling had 19 points (with 12 boards) and Ron Kellogg 12 points for a KU team that ultimately fell to Duke, 71-67, in the national semifinals in Dallas. A talented N.C. State squad was led by Charles Shackleford and Chris Washburn, who had 20 and 17 points respectively.
Though those two games were the only postseason contests played between the squads, there have been other entertaining games between the ACC and Big 12/Big Eight schools.
Perhaps the most exciting game, from a KU standpoint, was the Jayhawks’ 105-94 victory over the Wolfpack on Jan. 5, 1991 at Allen Fieldhouse. “Downtown” Terry Brown, a long-distance marksman from Clyde, New York, tied a Big Eight record with 11 3-point field goals en route to 42 points while Alonzo Jamison added a career-best 23 points as the Jayhawks scored the most points by a team in the 13-game series.
Brown, a senior guard listed at 6-foot-1 had 11 points in a span of 94 seconds to help Kansas turn an 85-79 lead into a 96-82 margin. His deep jumper with 1:30 remaining tied the league record for 3-point goals in a game, set earlier in the season by Oklahoma’s Brent Price. Brown was 11-of-17 from 3-point range.
“Yes I happened to be around when Terry was in the ‘zone.’ And I remember he was unbothered. When a player gets in that mode you let him cook as the kids say these days,” Jamison, who plans on being at Saturday’s game, told The Star in a direct message on social media.
“I thought that game set us up for the rest of the year ….the belief we had in each other,” Jamison added.
That 1990-91 KU team, in Roy Williams’ third season at KU, went 27-8 and reached the Final Four, losing to Duke, 72-65, in the NCAA title game in Indianapolis.
Brown led that team in scoring with a 16.0 points per game average, while Jamison was fourth in scoring at 10.4 ppg. Brown’s 11 3s in a game remain the school record for most treys in a single contest. Lagerald Vick, Billy Thomas and Mario Chalmers share second with eight 3s made in a game. Brown hit as many as seven 3s in three other games during his career.
Brown’s 42-point scoring spree ties for the eighth most points in a game by a Jayhawk, just 10 points shy of Wilt Chamberlain’s school record 52-point performance in 1956.
On that particular day, Brown scored 14 points in the first 7:04. It was 22-22 when Jamison scored from 12 feet and Mark Randall scored an inside hoop off a pass from Jamison. After a Wolfpack free throw, Jamison scored two baskets and Kansas was up 30-23 with six minutes to play in the first half.
The Wolfpack (6-3) inched within 45-42 just before halftime only to have Kansas (8-2 at the time) open the second half with a 12-4 run.
Brown scored 20 points in the first half and 22 in the second to top his previous career best scoring mark by 11 points. Randall added 14 points and Mike Maddox 12.
North Carolina State’s Rodney Monroe hit six 3s and finished with a season-high 34 points. Tom Gugliotta added 18 points, Chris Corchiani 14 and Bryant Feggins 13 for the Wolfpack.
“We were just trying to win the game,” Jamison said.
Of Roy Williams’ reaction to the big home victory, he said: “Coach always seemed not to be up or down, but you knew he was pleased.”
Brown’s 111 three-point field goals in 1990-91 were a KU single-season record, which stood for 27 years before Svi Mykhailiuk broke the mark with 115 threes in 2017-18. Brown continues to rank second on KU’s single-season 3-pointers list, one 3-pointer ahead of Devonte Graham and Jeff Boschee, who each hit 110 in their careers.
Brown is remembered for releasing the ball from behind his head like a slingshot.
“You feel like you just can’t miss,” Brown told reporter David Garfield of David Garfield’s Hoop Heaven, about being in the zone in that game against N.C. State.
“That whole week before the game, I had some of my teammates and friends kind of teasing me that Rodney Monroe was a better shooter than me. That kind of got me fired up. I really wanted to prove to them and other people who was the better shooter. That game pretty much set everything straight who was the better shooter. I was hot that game, and felt like I couldn’t miss anything.
“Every shot you take, you feel like it’s going to go in. That’s something I tried to practice every day, tried to get that type of feeling when I practiced or when I shot around by myself, so when you’re playing in the game, you pretty much get that feeling. It’s a great feeling. You don’t get it every game. You would like to. Once you do get in the zone, it’s hard to stop that person. It’s hard to miss. I tried to feel like that every game,” Brown added.
As far as other games in the KU-N.C. State series, the Jayhawks’ only loss was a 66-63 decision on Dec. 20, 1958, in Lawrence. The most recent game was KU’s 80-74 first-round victory over the Wolfpack in the 2022 Battle4Atlantis in Bahamas.
KU beat the Wolfpack in Lawrence, 84-64, on Dec. 21, 1992 and 84-56 on Dec. 21, 1996. The Jayhawks also won in Kansas City, 74-60, on Jan. 25, 1987. KU won in Raleigh, North Carolina, 80-58, on Dec. 12, 1959; 74-57 on Dec. 18, 1987; 74-57 on Dec. 8, 1993 and 96-91 on Dec. 10, 1994. KU also beat the Wolfpack in 1985 in Greensboro, 71-56.
This story was originally published December 12, 2024 at 9:53 AM with the headline "Remember when ... KU’s ‘Downtown’ Terry Brown scored 42 points in win over N.C. State?."
