KU fans dread return of red

John Burkhead can’t stomach the thought of his Kansas Jayhawks sporting red uniforms in Dallas.

Eighteen years after one of the most ignominious, shocking and gut-wrenching losses in KU history — when the crimson-cloaked Jayhawks collapsed out of the Final Four just down the street in Reunion Arena — the retired insurance executive from Topeka said he wouldn’t even dream of selling a policy on the team’s chances should they again sport red tanks and shorts.

Too much risk.

“It’s a bad deal,” Burkhead said, his diamond-encrusted, 40-years-of-service American Family Insurance ring shimmering against his Jack Daniels and water. “They should wear white or blue. That’s it.”

But the red uniforms — reintroduced this season by coach Bill Self — are poised for a return show in Dallas, as the Jayhawks muscle their way toward a conference title. KU defeated Missouri, 94-69, Friday night, setting up today’s showdown with Texas and a potential bout Sunday with top-seeded Oklahoma State.

The lineup would mean KU wearing road uniforms twice in two days, and the team has exactly two sets of road uniforms.

Kansas' Christian Moody, left, J.R. Giddens and Jeff Graves celebrate late in the game against MU. After trailing by as much as 12 points in the first half Friday, and leading by only two points at halftime, the Jayhawks opened up a double-digit lead in the second half, eventually blowing out Missouri 94-69. KU will face Texas at 3:20 p.m. today.

“That’s the advantage to having the red,” said Mitch Germann, the athletic department’s director of media relations. “You don’t have to do laundry.”

Fans bracing for Friday night’s game found themselves looking ahead to the implications of such convenience, and lamenting the past. The 1986 game against Duke, a 71-67 loss, ended a 35-4 season in devastating fashion.

Sharp shooter Archie Marshall went down with an injured knee.

Then-sophomore Danny Manning fouled out, having scored only four points.

And in KU’s first trip to the Final Four in a dozen years, the Jayhawks couldn’t advance to play a team — eventual champion Louisville — that they’d already beaten twice that season.

Former Jayhawk Chris Piper, left, chats with broadcaster Doug Bell at the Big 12 Tournament in Dallas. Piper, now a TV commentator, was on the Kansas University team that lost in the 1986 Final Four in Dallas against Duke when the Jayhawks wore red uniforms.

“Without question, that’s the worst loss I’ve ever been a part of,” said Chris Piper, who had been a sophomore on the team and is working this weekend as an analyst for ESPN Plus during the Big 12 Tournament. “It was such a shock.”

Piper doesn’t blame the uniforms — which superstitious coach Larry Brown soon would banish from the team’s lockers — for the loss. If anything, Piper said, it was KU’s tournament inexperience that tripped up what would be considered one of the school’s most talented teams.

“We were kind of in awe,” said Piper, who celebrated a national title two years later, in 1988. “Luck doesn’t have anything to do with it. It’s not the uniforms.”

In fact, he wouldn’t mind seeing them get another shot in Dallas. The red already came through earlier this week, when KU beat archrival Missouri in Columbia, Mo.

He figures the color deserves a chance for some postseason redemption.

“I like ’em,” Piper said.