1990s brought deep division between KU, WSU basketball programs
OMAHA – More than two decades of Wichita State basketball players have wondered how they would fare in a game against Kansas.
WSU players from the mid- and late-1990s didn’t wonder long.
“If we would have played KU when I played, I think they would have destroyed us,” said Jason Perez, who played 117 games for WSU from 1996-2000, but none against the Jayhawks. “Probably by like 30.”
The leanness of the Shockers during the 1990s was most evident in the disparity with KU and embodied in the games they played against each other in that decade. The Jayhawks won four games between 1990-93 by an average of 35 points, and WSU never played KU within 25.
“I thought we did OK,” said Tony Johnson, who played for WSU in an 81-51 loss at Levitt Arena on Jan. 8, 1992, “as far as the first half.
“It got real ugly after that.”
The wondering ends for WSU’s current players on Sunday, when the Shockers meet KU in the third round of the NCAA Tournament at the CenturyLink Center.
The series was allowed to end naturally after KU’s 103-54 win in Lawrence the following season. Coach Scott Thompson didn’t pursue a continuation of the one-sided rivalry after his first season.
The Jayhawks continued to reach NCAA Tournaments while WSU continued the process of bottoming out, winning nine games in 1993-94 and eight two seasons later before Thompson was forced to resign.
“I’m pretty sure that (Thompson) expressed, at least in private, ‘We don’t need to be playing these guys right now,’” said Mike Kennedy, WSU’s radio broadcaster since 1980. “…I think it was the right move on Wichita State’s part, or at least I can understand them making it.
“Those last couple, three (games) were honestly embarrassing, and I don’t know that it does your program any good at all to get blown out by a team like that, in terms of trying to build it.”
The rivalry, at least between the fan bases, never completely went away, and it was occasionally fanned by actions from either side. Johnson remembers then-KU coach Roy Williams being upset when WSU didn’t look at Jayhawk assistant Jerry Green before hiring Thompson in 1992.
There were WSU victories later in the 1990s, even though the teams never played. Wichitans Darrin Williams and Maurice Evans each chose to play for the Shockers rather than at KU, with Evans’ choice being particularly controversial.
“Maurice Evans got very angry calls from Roy Williams, like, ‘How can you possibly be choosing Wichita State over us?’” Kennedy said. “There was also kind of that undercurrent a little bit.”
Randy Smithson, who declined an interview for this story, was the third WSU coach of the 1990s but the first to never coach against KU. Mark Turgeon, a former Kansas player, never got his alma mater on the schedule.
“We always thought, ‘KU is going to schedule us next year,’” said Darrin Williams, a Shocker under Smithson from 1996-2000. “… We wanted to have this whole in-state rivalry thing going on.
“Unfortunately, after being in the program one or two years, you understand that you can want everything in the world but sometimes you just can’t have it.”
This story was originally published March 21, 2015 at 6:20 PM with the headline "1990s brought deep division between KU, WSU basketball programs."