Lawrence High's Ozi Ajekwu and Free State's Shannon Clarke get up for the opening tip of the city showdown on Friday, Feb. 21, 2020 at Allen Fieldhouse.

It’s hard not to associate basketball with Lawrence. Kansas stars like Wilt Chamberlain, Danny Manning, Raef LaFrentz and Paul Pierce, just to name a few, made the game a mainstay attraction for the town.

So the fact that Allen Fieldhouse, the 68-year home to the Jayhawks and one of the state’s most historic venues, hasn’t hosted a statewide high school basketball championship in more than three decades may come as a surprise.

The state’s Class 6A baseball and cross country championships recently returned to Lawrence and KU for the first time since 2019. But Lawrence is nowhere to be found on the Kansas State High School Activities Association’s newly released list of 2024 boys and girls state basketball championship sites.

It’s been 36 years since the state title game resided in Allen Fieldhouse for the Class 6A boys and girls during the 1984 to 1987 seasons. That short stretch of games saw Lawrence High’s girls squad secure a 1984 state title in its home city behind former head coach Larry Zientara.

In other high school action, before the 2020 global pandemic, Lawrence High and Free State played their City Showdown at Allen Fieldhouse during the 2010s. But those games returned to the teams’ respective home floors when schools reopened in 2021.

There’s been no shortage of talks between KSHSAA and KU about returning the early-March state basketball championship to Lawrence.

“We see the value and the importance of supporting KSHSAA and giving the high school athletes in our the state the best atmospheres to play in,” Collin Sexton, an associate athletic director for strategic initiatives at KU, told the Journal-World. “We understand that Allen Fieldhouse is the pinnacle and the premier facility, potentially in the country, in the sport of basketball and we understand the want there.”

Kyle Doperalski, an associate executive director overseeing basketball operations at KSHSAA, is one of the primary contacts the university has been in touch with on the subject of bringing a state title, of any kind, to the KU campus.

Football, which is typically scheduled in late November, isn’t off the table for KU, either. The catch for both sports, however, is working out two very busy collegiate sports schedules.

For hoops, the year-by-year process of securing a host site is most often dependent on whether the previous site is willing, and capable, to serve again, Doperalski said.

“We’re certainly interested in Allen Fieldhouse and working with KU,” Doperalski said. “Recent history has taken that to Wichita. We’re certainly not opposed to Allen Fieldhouse and KU, but we do have that existing relationship with Wichita State.”

photo by: Journal-World archive

The above newspaper clipping is a recap of the final state Class 6A title game played at Allen Fieldhouse in 1987.

photo by: Lawrence High School

The 1984 Lawrence High girls basketball team, which climbed their way to a Class 6A state title at Allen Fieldhouse.

For a 13th consecutive year, the 10,506-seat Koch Arena at Wichita State University will be the state’s answer for hosting the Class 6A title games.

Brad Pittman, a senior associate athletic director overseeing facilities and operations at Wichita State, said the school’s existing relationship with KSHSAA is built on providing a consistent product for players and their fans at Koch Arena.

From Pittman’s perspective, the state basketball championship serves to provide athletes with an unforgettable experience that represents the peak of a long, hard-fought high school basketball season. Rewarding those teams with a unique experience is critical, Pittman said.

“It’s showcasing what you’re about,” Pittman said. “We’re trying to showcase our venue in the best possible light, not a financial windfall. It goes bigger than that.”

The job goes beyond providing a court. Hosting a first-class basketball tournament showcases the WSU campus and surrounding community for all 16 schools that participate in the tournament’s current format, Pittman explains.

The idea is to market the event toward those students still thumbing through their acceptance letters in the spring.

Even if a student doesn’t end up enrolling in the fall, schools and their communities can cash in on hosting tournaments annually. Nebraska’s state boys and girls basketball tournaments, combined with the Big Ten Wrestling Championships, brought anywhere between $4 million and $5 million to businesses in Lincoln during an eight-day period in March 2022, Lincoln’s Convention and Business Bureau told Nebraska Public Media.

As the Journal-World previously reported, KU plans to invest $49 million into Allen Fieldhouse with renovations including a new hospitality area, video board and premium seating at the facility.

The project complements recent plans to renovate David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium as part of the school’s “gateway project,” which aims to improve economic spaces surrounding the KU campus and generate revenue for academic projects.

Bringing a state basketball championship to a modernized Allen Fieldhouse will depend on whether the school and KSHSAA can balance their schedules, and presumably, their checkbooks. Currently, KSHSAA selects its state basketball sites on a year-by-year basis.

When scheduling future sites, all sorts of logistical aspects of hosting a high school hoops tourney are in the air — everything from locker rooms to on-site paramedics.

However, accommodating a complicated college basketball schedule is the largest obstacle facing the two parties, KSHSAA and KU, moving forward.

“It’s less of the lead-up (to the state title) and more of the what-if of an early exit from the Big 12 tournament,” Sexton said.

Big 12 logistics is also shaking up next year’s Class 2A basketball lineup. Hosted at Bramlage Coliseum at Kansas State University for several years, the 2A title game will move to Dodge City this coming season due to a scheduling conflict within the upcoming Big 12 men’s and women’s basketball regular season.

This year, the state high school championships and Big 12 men’s and women’s tournaments were all concurrent during the second week of March; next year, the women’s tournament (March 7-12) takes place before the men’s (March 12-16), creating a longer period in which Big 12 men’s teams might need to use their home facilities. Even with the new format, women’s teams could also need to use their venues again if they’re still headed for the NCAA Tournament following a Big 12 tournament defeat, hence Sexton’s point.

These problems could very well impact KU and challenge the prospect of Allen Fieldhouse hosting a state hoops title moving forward. Weighing schedules against potential revenue those games can draw, however, remains a tough conversation.

The Jayhawks run down court against Washburn during the first half on Thursday, Dec. 3, 2020 at Allen Fieldhouse.