This Kansas basketball team is in desperate need of a powerful battery recharge. It won’t find a better source to plug into for renewed passion, pride, thrust and proper respect for its rich heritage than the people at this weekend’s 110th celebration of the sport at KU. Meet ’em, listen to ’em, try to honor what they have done.

Mid-day last Monday, Jayhawk faithful were talking about the virtual certainty of a No. 1 seeding for the 2008 NCAA Tournament. After getting unhinged at Texas, KU again is on even ground with Kansas State and Texas. Some fear KU, with its maddening lapses in intensity, may not even win a conference title and postseason tournament, let alone grab the national brass ring.

This is a great weekend for the Jayhawks to recognize they’re drifting like a ship without a rudder and to start measuring up to their potential. They need to note the Crimson and Blue legacy they represent and bust loose – to honor the guys who got the program to the admirable level it enjoys. So, ’08 fans think their darlings are that good? Time to prove it!

Sad thing is, the Jayhawks who have gone before can’t rectify that they fell short now and then. The beauty is that this ’08 gang, for all its drift and self-doubt, still can get on track to Big 12 dominance and impact in NCAA play. If they’re starved for incentive, they can vow to honor those who set the stage for more big-time achievements.

Kansas has been to the NCAA finals seven times and has a 2-5 record there. The ’52 and ’88 championship teams aren’t hurting for appreciation and glory. But how about “getting even” for the other five finalists, particularly the 1953 and 1957 teams, which each fell short by a single point? (It’s hard to realize that of the seven Jayhawks who played in that ’57 heartbreaker against North Carolina, only Ron Loneski is still alive!). Honor, too, the ’40, ’91 and ’03 finalists.

The ’08 Jayhawks can pay the great ’43 team a huge tribute. KU was good enough to win the NCAA title that Wyoming did – except that a fabulous KU squad had been scattered to the four winds of World War II two days after the regular season ended.

How about those KU teams of the 1931-43 period who won seven league titles, forged four ties, finished second once and third another time? Until 1939 there was no NCAA Tournament glory to be had. KU reached the finals in ’40 and was 2-1 in ’42 regional play (T.P. Hunter, ’42, later died in Pacific combat). Then the unbeaten league champs of ’43 got derailed by WW II.

Of the ’40 starters, only attorney Howard Engleman of Salina survives. If the current players can’t draw inspiration from this academic genius, war hero, All-American and short-term KU coach, as sharp and witty as ever, they’re beyond help.

There was the brilliant ’66 Kansas team that would have won the national title if it hadn’t been shafted by a bad call against Texas Western, eventual champ, in Lubbock. Win a few for them, ’08 guys. There are countless Jayhawks who deserved better than fate dealt them. The best way to remedy that is for the current players to recognize how they must perform to avoid the kind of pain I saw in that ’57 locker room after the three overtimes with Carolina.

The ’08 Jayhawks should be inspired by association with the guys who got them to the big-time picnic grounds. If they don’t realize by now where the program came from and how it got where it is, they sure-in-hell should.