This Kansas Dream Team unselfish

Waugh, Miranda tap KU's best -- from coaches' standpoint

By Tom Keegan, Journal-World Sports Editor

Friday, October 14, 2005

The mission, graciously accepted by Jerry Waugh, was to compile the best possible 15-man team, choosing from a pool of all former Kansas University basketball players.

Not the best players, the best team. For the best players, consult the jerseys that decorate the south wall of Allen Fieldhouse. The objective here is to compile a team that could get the most out of practice in such a way as to produce the best results on game night.

We all saw during the 2004 Olympic Games what happens when the best players get crammed onto one roster without regard to how they mesh. Not even Larry Brown could make it work. That was a marketing man's Dream Team. This is a coach's Dream Team.

Waugh, whose four-year playing career at Kansas began in the 1947-48 season, is best qualified for this mission because he not only played for Phog Allen at KU, but he was an assistant to Dick Harp and worked in the athletic department as an assistant athletic director and golf coach. Waugh has lived most of his adult life in Lawrence.

Before choosing a player for his all-time team, Waugh enlisted Lawrence resident Sam Miranda to help him with the selections. Miranda assisted Ted Owens for 12 seasons. Waugh was coaching in California at Chico State and San Francisco State during much of the time Miranda worked for Owens. Both men have watched the Jayhawks regularly through the years.

Before considering who made the cut, check out a list of those who didn't, besides the legends who predated Waugh, such as Fred Pralle, Howard Engleman and Charlie Black.

Consensus first-team All-Americans not on this team: Clyde Lovellette, Raef LaFrentz, Paul Pierce and Drew Gooden. Other players selected to All-American squads who didn't survive the cut: B.H. Born, Jerry Gardner, Walt Wesley, Dave Robisch, Bud Stallworth and Darnell Valentine.

"I want unselfish kids," Waugh told Miranda. "Kids who are easy to work with, and they fit with one another. Harmony, that's what makes a team successful."

Waugh laid down one more criterion.

"Everybody wants to win," he said. "We want kids who hate to lose."

Waugh was willing to make one exception on the harmony front, yet that player still was his first selection: Wilt Chamberlain.

"Attitude-wise, if I had to pick all those guys and ask how well does he fit, I question that. But he was so physically gifted if I had a chance to choose up sides and I get first pick, I'm picking him," said Waugh, who coached Wilt for two seasons at KU. "I didn't think he was as coachable as I would want him to be. He wasn't open-minded to change. He had so much success that he had a lot of pride. It was difficult for him to go through a period of change. To try doing something a different way you're going to go through a transformation where you don't do something very well for a little while. He couldn't handle that."

For example?

"Post moves," Waugh said. "Turn over, face the basket. Turn over, step through. Drop steps. Those little things, just fundamentals of working with big men that we couldn't get him to do. He was a rhythm shooter. Get the ball, bounce, turn, shoot."

Miranda interjected with a question: "How hard a practice player was he, Jerry?"

Waugh: "He was a good practice player."

Miranda: "A hard worker?"

Waugh: "I wouldn't say he was a hard worker, Sam. I guess you could say Wilt was kind of politely disobedient. He wasn't going to be a pain in the neck on the practice floor. But since he was going to be the center of things you couldn't accomplish everything to make the parts go. In that respect, you never quite got the product finished."

Still, Waugh didn't hesitate for a second putting him on this team and centering the offense and defense around the most gifted athlete to ever star at Dr. Naismith's sport.

Both coaches agreed on the guards and forwards to put on the floor with Chamberlain. First, though, Waugh had a question for Miranda regarding JoJo White: "Was JoJo a selfish player, Sam?"

"Not at all," Miranda answered. "Just the opposite. JoJo didn't care if he got 30 and we won or if he got four and we won. Probably the best ballhandler we've ever had here at Kansas, quicker than anybody we've had at Kansas, a good outside shooter, as he showed in the pros, and just a super attitude kid. Hard, hard worker. He could win for you without scoring points, which I think is a big test of any great basketball player. And he was a great practice player. I think he's the best guard ever to play in the Big 12 Conference (Big Eight when White played)."

Joining White in the backcourt is Kirk Hinrich.

"I always like to go up there and watch the kids scrimmage before practice starts, and Hinrich is the first kid I watched when he first came here who defensively already moved his feet so well," Waugh said. "Normally, kids who come in here to play, they've worked very hard on offensive skills and haven't hit a lick on defense."

Danny Manning and Nick Collison are the starting forwards.

"I thought Danny's post fundamentals were as good as any player we've had here," Waugh said. "He could play on the perimeter too. And you could roll him in and out of any unit. If you want to pressure, you still keep Danny in the game. And he had that leadership quality."

Of Collison, Miranda said: "That Texas game here, the one where Dick Vitale stood up and gave him a standing ovation, I don't know if anyone could play a better game for Kansas than that game Collison played."

Both coaches praised Collison's fundamental footwork and athleticism.

With the starting five set, Waugh and Miranda agreed a team works best with an eight-man rotation, normally with a guard, a forward and a center backing up the starters. In this case, because of Chamberlain's extraordinary stamina and ability to stay out of foul trouble, a backup center wasn't necessary, and in the event one was, Collison could slide over a spot. Instead, they chose two guards and one forward for playing time off the bench.

Bill Bridges backs up both forwards.

"Tough rebounder," Waugh said. "Just a great practice player. Great attitude. If you want the ball off the backboard, he'd go get it for you. Big, strong guy with good mobility. Not great quickness, but good mobility. He was one of those kids who knew what his shot was and stayed within that."

Waugh and Miranda agreed on Jacque Vaughn and Rex Walters as the top guards off the bench.

"I only watched him, but from what I saw he was a great leader," Miranda said of Vaughn. "Great attitude kid. Intelligent kid. And he was great at advancing the ball."

Said Waugh: "I watched him come back and work with the kids. He's so quick and so tough. He gets down in a defensive position and when you move, he moves, and he doesn't move until you move. He gets out and helps on somebody and gets right back."

Walters averaged 15.6 points and four assists in his two seasons at Kansas after transferring from Northwestern, but his play at the other end lands him in the rotation.

"He'd get in the other player's face and just take him out of the game," Miranda said. "Tenacious, hard-nosed as hell, in your face."

Waugh: "Intimidating. One of those kids who was not going to lose. He was that way from the moment he stepped on the floor."

To make the bench on this team, the players not only needed great practice habits and unselfish attitudes, but enough all-around ability to contribute immediately in the rare instances they were called upon.

Two-time gold medalist Bill Hougland knew how to play a supporting role.

"He could play on any team," Waugh said. "He did everything well and wasn't really outstanding at any one thing."

Guard Al Kelley was a gold-medal winner who played behind a pair of stiffs by the names of Oscar Robertson and Jerry West on the Olympic team.

"Al drove B.H. Born to be the player he was," Waugh said. "He was unrelenting on him to play hard every day. You want Al behind you when you're going into a dark alley because he'll stay there with you and fight."

Forward Riney Lochmann, according to Miranda, "was such a great defensive player, he wouldn't even let you get the ball in practice. He would beat out his competition in practice because he would outhustle his competition. Not a great scorer, not a great jumper, not a lot of great physical things, but if you're picking a team to win, he's on it."

For pure intensity, Miranda said he never saw anybody quite like Dale Greenlee, whose top scoring average was 11.8 points per game.

"Our kids would jog three laps every day to loosen up," Miranda said. "The minute Greenlee stepped on the floor, he was gone. He sprinted all three laps. You have Riney Lochmann and Dale Greenlee playing together in practice and you might not be able to throw a pass."

Jerod Haase, a future coaching star in the minds of both former coaches, "had such intensity and was a great emotional leader," Waugh said.

Tom Kivisto holds two Kansas University assists records. The first came Dec. 29, 1973, when Kivisto had 18 helpers against Nebraska. The other came recently, when he pledged $10 million toward a new facility for the football team.

"Tommy was a great vocal leader and was always talking to the players in the dressing room," Miranda said. "One day things were not going very well in practice and Ted sat them all down to talk to them. Tommy spoke up and said, ‘Coach, we're not running the right offense.' Ted tweaked some things and we went to the Final Four that year. He was super smart."

On this team, he has plenty of company.

"When Doc Allen was asked if his team was the best he had, he would always dodge that one by saying let's wait 20 years when we can evaluate how their lives turned out," Waugh said. "Look at these guys and you're going to find they are shakers and movers."

Wayne Simien beat out Valentine and Roger Bohnenstiel for the final spot.

"Great attitude," Waugh said of Simien. "He wanted to come to Kansas to play since he was little. He's a tough kid who was at home playing inside."

Why not Lovellette? "Great scorer, and tough, but he couldn't move," Waugh said. "We're going to run."

Why not Pierce? Waugh: "Great one-on-one player. Just clear it out and watch him go." Miranda: "He could dominate for a 10-minute stretch and then for six or seven minutes you wouldn't know he was on the floor. Maybe it wasn't his fault. Maybe it was the guys he was playing with or something, but he'd just disappear."

Why not Robisch? Miranda: "Terrible practice player. Real good in games, but even he would tell you he wasn't a good practice player."

That can't be tolerated on this team. After all, the practices would be as intense as the games.

"If all these kids in their prime played a scrimmage at Allen Fieldhouse you'd see some of the greatest basketball ever played," Miranda said. "Vaughn, White, Kivisto, Haase, Collison. My God, that's unbelievable. It would be all-out every second."

It would be a great deal more compelling than watching the 2004 Olympic team one-on-one its way to a bronze medal. When it comes to basketball, it's best to let the coaches select the team first, then let the marketing geniuses figure out how to sell the tickets and jerseys.