TED OWENS                     KU Record348-182, .657, 19 Seasons

Head Coach, 1964-83

Assistant Coach, 1960-64

Ted Owens
 
  ARTICLES ABOUT TED OWENS
  • A Century of Basketball
  • The Crimson & Blue Handbook
  • Nothin' But Net
  • A Century of Jayhawk Triumphs

 

 

Owens ranks as the second-winningest coach in Kansas basketball history behind Phog Allen. His record of 348-182 (.657) was compiled over 19 seasons from 1964-83.

In Owens' tenure as the Jayhawks' head coach, Kansas won six Big Eight Conference titles and advanced to NCAA postseason play seven times. His 1971 and 1974 teams made it to the Final Four, and in 1968 the Jayhawks lost to Dayton in the finals of the National Invitation Tournament.

Owens was named Big Eight Coach of the Year five times and was named National Coach of the Year in 1978 by Basketball Weekly. He coached five All-Americans: Jo Jo White, Darnell Valentine, Dave Robisch, Bud Stallworth and Walter Wesley.

A three-year letterman at Oklahoma (1949-51), Owens honed his coaching skills as head coach at Cameron State Junior College in Lawton, Okla. In four seasons his teams never won fewer than 20 games and three times advanced to the national junior college tournament semifinals. At Cameron, he amassed a 93-24 record and boasted four junior college All-Americans.

Owens then accepted an assistant's position under Dick Harp in 1960, and was promoted to head coach when Harp resigned following the 1963-64 season.

Source:  A Century of Basketball

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Ted Owens, named the head basketball coach at KU on March 27, 1964, climbed aboard an emotional roller coaster he would ride until 1983.  He led KU to the heights of two Final Four appearances and the depths of the school’s first back-to-back losing seasons in a decade.  Along the way, there was talk of lifetime contracts as well as fairly organized efforts to oust him from his job.  But Owens grabbed the bar and hung on tight for 19 years, a tenure at KU second only to Phog Allen’s.  The 348 victories he collected at KU also rank second only to Allen’s 590.

Owens, who lettered three years with the University of Oklahoma basketball team, started his coaching career at Cameron State Junior College in Lawton, Okla., where his teams never won fewer than 20 games and three times advanced to the national junior-college tournament semi-finals.  Owens then became an assistant under KU’s Dick Harp in 1960.

KU won six Big Eight titles under Owens and went to the NCAA Tournament seven times.  The 1971 and 1974 KU teams advanced to the Final Four.  He was named Big Eight Coach of the Year five times and was Basketball Weekly’s national Coach of the Year in 1978.  Five All-Americans played under Owens: Jo Jo White, Darnell Valentine, Dave Robisch, Bud Stallworth and Walt Wesley.

Soon after Dick harp announced his resignation, KU players signed a petition calling for Owens to receive the head coaching job.  The seniors on the upcoming team, led by all-conference center George Unseld, started the drive.  The petition was then given to KU Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe.  The 34-year-old Owens was announced as the KU coach in March 1964.  “To find myself as head basketball coach at the finest basketball school in the country gives you a feeling that is hard to describe,” Owens told the Topeka Capital-Journal.  “Elation is hardly a word to describe my feeling.”

Owens, who was known as a top recruiter, got busy on his new job – even before the announcement was made that it was his.  He was late to the news conference introducing him as the head coach because he had been meeting with a junior-college prospect, Al Lopes of Coffeyville.  Owens took his head coaching debut in 1964 pretty seriously.  Owens later recalled his first game as KU head coach in a Wichita Eagle story: “KU opened the (1964-65) season at Arkansas.  Owens tried to prepare his team like it was for the national championship.  “We were working twice a day, Saturdays and Sundays too,’ he said. “I was trying to get everything in.” “He even called Glen Rose, then the Arkansas coach, at home to see if he could get practice time on the school’s court the day before the game.  “Glen isn’t here,’ Rose’s wife said.  ‘He’s out fishing.  They aren’t even practicing today.”  The Jayhawks won 65-60.

Source:  The Crimson & Blue Handbook, pages 64-65.

Owens ranks as the second-winningest coach in Kansas basketball history behind Phog Allen. His record of 348-182 (.657) was compiled over 19 seasons from 1964-83.

In Owens' tenure as the Jayhawks' head coach, Kansas won six Big Eight Conference titles and advanced to NCAA postseason play seven times. His 1971 and 1974 teams made it to the Final Four, and in 1968 the Jayhawks lost to Dayton in the finals of the National Invitation Tournament.

Owens was named Big Eight Coach of the Year five times and was named National Coach of the Year in 1978 by Basketball Weekly. He coached five All-Americans: Jo Jo White, Darnell Valentine, Dave Robisch, Bud Stallworth and Walter Wesley.

A three-year letterman at Oklahoma (1949-51), Owens honed his coaching skills as head coach at Cameron State Junior College in Lawton, Okla. In four seasons his teams never won fewer than 20 games and three times advanced to the national junior college tournament semifinals. At Cameron, he amassed a 93-24 record and boasted four junior college All-Americans.

Owens then accepted an assistant's position under Dick Harp in 1960, and was promoted to head coach when Harp resigned following the 1963-64 season.

Source:  Nothin but Net

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Ted Owens immediately ingratiated himself to the Kansas fans by winning the Big Eight Holiday Tournament in his first three years.  He also won seven of his first eight against Kansas State, which had become the league power.

Owens, an assistant under Harp who was selected over Ralph Miller and Dean Smith, coached more seasons and won more games than any Kansas coach except Phog Allen.  He led the Jayhawks during a period of remarkable growth in college basketball and the Big Eight.  When Owens started the Final Four was still being played in auditoriums.  By the time he left, it had been moved to domes.  The Big Eight had been transformed from a league of plodders to sleek athletes.

During Owens’ tenure, no team won more that the Jayhawks’s six league titles.  There were Final Four appearances in 1971 and 1974.  the 1971 team, led by Dave Robisch and Bud Stallworth, went 14-0 in the Big Eight and was 27-1 entering the Final Four.  Kansas played UCLA tough in the 1971 semifinals, recovering from as 13-point halftime deficit, but the Bruins pulled away at the end for an eight-point victory.

Unfortunately for Owens, what many considered to be two of his best teams didn’t reach the Final Four.  In 1966, an official waved off what would have been a winning basket by JoJo White against Texas Western in the Midwest Regional title game.  White was ruled to have stepped out of bounds.  Then, in 1978, Kansas got a lousy draw in the West Regional and lost to UCLA in the opener.

In 1968, the Jayhawks didn’t make the NCAA Tournament, but in the first NIT appearance in school history, Kansas reached the title game before losing to Dayton.

Owens was named Big Eight coach of the year four times.  Five players were named to an All-America team.  He coached 15 academic all-conference players.  Owens was fired after the 1983 season.  The Jayhawks were coming off seasons of 13-14 and 13-16, but owens was prepared for a big 1984.  Greg Dreiling was coming off a redshirt season and Calvin Thompson was in the fold.  But those players would flourish under a new coach, Larry Brown.

Source:  A Century of Jayhawk Triumphs, p. 87.

 

No Kansas fan could have been happier to have the Jayhawks in Oklahoma City than former coach Ted Owens.  "It's exciting," said Owens, a partner in a money management firm in Tulsa. "I've been really lucky."

Owens compiled a record of 348-182 with the Jayhawks from 1964 to 83 with Final Four trips in 1971 and '74. He later coached Oral Roberts University in Tulsa 1985-87 and coached pro basketball overseas before taking a job as athletic director at St. Leo University in Florida in 1995.  Owens returned to Tulsa to enter private business a year and a half ago.

"It's been terrific," he said. "I'm close to Stillwater, Norman and not too far from Lawrence. I have loved being back in the middle of great basketball."

Source:  KUSports.com  3/23/03

Bullpen brought Owens to KU, By Kevin Haskin, Topeka Capital-Journal, October 3, 2009