Dec. 9, 1989, is a date that will live in infamy for all Kansas University and Kentucky men’s basketball fans.

On that afternoon the tradition-rich Jayhawks plastered the tradition-rich Wildcats, 150-95, at Allen Fieldhouse.

No other Kansas team has scored as many points in a game.

No other Kentucky team has allowed as many points in a game.

“Actually I have tried to erase it from my mind about a million times,” said Holy Cross head coach Ralph Willard, associate head coach on Rick Pitino’s Kentucky staff during the 1989-90 season.

“I took all the blame for the loss,” Willard joked. “It wasn’t exactly a fun trip for me.”

The scary thing for Willard is the 2001-02 Jayhawks who will meet Holy Cross in a first-round NCAA Midwest Regional game at 6:50 p.m. Thursday at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis average 92.0 points a game, almost identical to the 92.1 ppg average of the team that waxed Kentucky.

“Hijack the bus,” Willard said, asked what would be the best way to defend Kansas. “I don’t know if there is a way to defend them.

“They have demonstrated throughout the year it is very difficult to take anything away from them. You get alumni notes in your e-mail, all coaches do. We try to ignore them, but one guy wrote to me, ‘You have to take away their transition game.’

“Well that’s kind of interesting. They average 92 points a game. I think a couple other coaches have tried to do that,” Willard added.

Willard takes no solace in the fact Oklahoma held KU to 55 points in Sunday’s 64-55 Big 12 Tournament victory at Kemper Arena.

“I think Oklahoma is slightly a little more athletic than we are,” Willard said of his 18-14 Crusaders. “We don’t have the athletes than can bang with them and guard them on the perimeter like Oklahoma did. Oklahoma is the only team that has been successful doing it.

“I look for weaknesses and don’t see any. I think they are one of the two to three best passing teams I’ve seen. The best transition team in the country? No question about it. We can’t get in a running match. That’s obvious. It’d be like ‘Tommy the Tortoise’ playing the ‘Road Runner.'”

Willard is not pleased his Crusaders must play the Jayhawks in St. Louis. A year ago, Holy Cross scared Kentucky, falling by just four points in a first-round NCAA game in Uniondale, N.Y. just a three-hour drive from Holy Cross’ campus in Worcester, Mass.

“I was hoping we’d get to go to Washington or Pittsburgh. Those two sites it would have been easier to get our fans there,” Willard said, not sure he’s a fan of the new pod system that lets the top four seeds in each regional play at the site closest to home.

“I think it’s great parents of players (on top teams) get to go to the games and things like that. But if all you are going to do is reward the high seeded teams you are taking the neutrality away from the NCAA Tournament which is what the tournament is supposed to be about putting 64 teams in sites that are basically neutral and letting the teams decide who wins, not the environment.

“Obviously this is going to be a very partisan environment to play in. This is going to take away the possibility of upsets of lower seeds over the higher seeds.

“Maybe that’s what the NCAA wants, I don’t know. Our game against Kentucky last year … Kentucky travels well. They will bring thousands wherever they go, but we also had a vocal support group and I think it’s one of the reasons we did play as well as we did. We weren’t in an environment totally one sided.”

Yet Willard isn’t whining.

“We got the draw where we got it and we’ve got to play,” he said.