Kansas University grabbed plenty of headlines in 2002 with its best basketball season in years: a 16-0 Big 12 season followed by the Jayhawks’ first trip to the Final Four since 1993.

That success was the state’s top sports story of the year, as selected in voting by newspaper and broadcast members of the Associated Press.

The Jayhawks’ season beat out the U.S. Women’s Open golf tournament at Prairie Dunes outside Hutchinson for the No. 1 spot.

The Jayhawks’ 33-4 season ended without coach Roy Williams’ first national championship, but Williams’ disappointment was for his players, not himself.

“This bunch was a heck of a basketball team, and they took old Roy for a really good ride,” Williams said after the Jayhawks lost 97-88 in the semifinals to eventual champion Maryland.

One player’s career at KU ended a year early, when All-American forward Drew Gooden elected to forego his senior season and jump to the NBA. His decision was the No. 5 story.

“This is a dream of mine,” Gooden said at the time. He went from a talented achiever as a freshman to the Big 12’s leading scorer and rebounder in his final season. “And it’s so close to coming true and I want it so bad. I just want to end it there. My decision is to enter the draft and it’s not a bad one. It should be only good for me and my family and the school.”

Women’s sports, college basketball and the state’s two Big 12 schools were all well-represented in the top five.

The success of Kansas State’s women’s basketball team was the No. 3 story. The Wildcats — a largely homegrown squad — reached the Midwest Regional semifinals in March and were ranked as high as No. 2 early in the 2002-2003 season.

Another success story in Manhattan — the football team’s rebound from a 6-6 finish in 2001 to a 10-2 regular-season record, a Top 10 ranking and a Holiday Bowl berth in 2002 — was the No. 4 story.

No. 6 was Jeff Gordon’s second win in as many Winston Cup races at Kansas Speedway, as the 2-year-old track continues to fuel economic development in Kansas City, Kan., and surrounding Wyandotte County.

Seward County Community College’s national championship in women’s basketball — the first title in any sport for the school in Liberal — was the No. 7 story, with three football stories rounding out the Top 10.

Olathe North’s continued domination of the state’s largest enrollment class was voted the No. 8 story. The school’s winning streak reached 38 games as it won its third straight Class 6A championship, its sixth in the past seven years.

Kansas’ 2-10 season in Mark Mangino’s first season as football coach was ranked ninth.

The No. 10 story came from tiny Pretty Prairie, in south-central Kansas.

The high school’s 8-man football team had to end its season three games early, after coach C.T. Young stopped practice one day and asked any player who had violated the school’s zero-tolerance alcohol and tobacco policy to step forward.

Sixteen of the Bulldogs’ 23 players admitted to violations, leaving Young with no choice but to dismiss them from the team. That left Pretty Prairie with only seven players.

Still, the Bulldogs earned points — along with praise in newspaper editorials across the state — for their honesty.