KANSAS CITY, Mo. — When the name popped up on CBS’ Selection Show 20 years ago, Jeff Hawkins still remembers what he didn’t know.
“It says ‘Bucknell’,” Hawkins, a former Kansas backup guard, remembered. “We were almost like, ‘Who the hell is Bucknell?’ I never heard of a Bucknell. What is that? Is that the mascot?”
Hawkins and Kansas would soon find out in the most painful way possible. Twenty years ago this month No. 14 seed Bucknell beat third-seeded Kansas 64-63 in one of the biggest upsets in NCAA Tournament history.
Don’t be dismayed if you don’t remember that late-night opening round game in Oklahoma City. In 2005, the current Jayhawks who will play Arkansas in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, were in diapers.
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Since that time Kansas’ Bill Self won two national championships, was awarded a lifetime contract and entered the Naismith Hall of Fame while still an active coach. But on that night a college hoops blue blood entered. It exited bleeding.
When Bucknell’s Chris McNaughton banked in the winner with 10.5 seconds left, jaws were dropping from Lawrence to Nuremberg, Germany, McNaughton’s hometown. They were celebrating the program’s first NCAA Tournament win in tiny Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. home of the 179-year old liberal arts school with an enrollment of 4,000.
There are always reasons for an upset but for this slice of college basketball royalty there were no excuses. Kansas, a program that had come off a pair of Final Fours and an Elite Eight, lost a first-round NCAA Tournament game for the first time since 1978.
But as we ease into another March, Bucknell over Kansas is a shining example why we love this time of year so much. It’s not that anything can happen. Cinderellas are the lifeblood of the tournament itself.
It’s how they happen. This is that story …
Jayhawks didn’t take the Bison seriously
“We just overlooked those guys,” Hawkins, currently head coach at Pembroke Hill High School 40 miles from his alma mater, said recently. “We didn’t respect them. We thought since we had ‘Kansas’ across our chests, that’s at least going to get us to the Sweet 16 or at least the second round.”
This particular upset wasn’t exactly No. 1 seed Virginia losing to No. 16 seed Maryland-Baltimore County in 2018 or Fairleigh-Dickinson becoming the second No. 16 seed to knock off a No. 1 when it shocked Purdue two years ago. Or even Saint Peter’s beating Kentucky three years ago.
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It’s that when upsets do occur, warning signs are often ignored. Unforeseen circumstances emerge. Two teams make the headlines – one of them for all the wrong reasons.
That year Bucknell was a collegiate Hoosiers.
Oh, and for those Jayhawks who didn’t know. The Bucknell mascot is the Bison. That fact should be tattooed in the Kansas psyche by now.
A program that took down that season’s preseason No. 1, did it with four scholarship players. Bucknell’s academically-inclined Patriot League was in the process of integrating athletic scholarships into the college experience. Coach Pat Flannery started only two of his full rides.
That created a problem. His two best players weren’t on scholarship – Patriot League Player of the Year Charles Lee and Bucknell hall of famer and two-time captain Kevin Bettencourt.
“I’m sure the kids talk over a beer. You knew who was getting what,” Flannery said. “I had wonderful parents saying, ‘Coach, we’re paying $30,000-$40,000 a year and you’re giving scholarships [to others].”
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The lede from my game story that night laid it out:
“Kansas thought it would flip a switch come tournament time. All the great ones do when injuries, meaningless conference tournaments and tedious regular seasons get in the way of what really counts.
Something flipped all right – maybe James Naismith in his grave.”
Too harsh? You be the judge. Kansas lost to a team whose coach was so stressed with anxiety, Flannery left the bench on occasion in his career because of a reaction to his medicine.
“It consumed me…,” Flannery said of the demands of his job. “Then they put me on this Paxil to try to calm [me] down. It takes the water [anxiety] and makes it not boil until you’re done with it — and then it boils.”
Bucknell was playing its first tournament game since 1989. Kansas was playing in its 107th tournament game all time. Kansas lost to a team whose brand was so unknown a Bucknell assistant paid the Northern Iowa band that night at the Ford Center to play the Bison fight song. The Panthers got $150 to buy pizza and free T-shirts. The fight song was faxed into the band that morning.
Early exit for preseason No. 1
That was Self’s second year at Kansas. He had a trio that was supposed to lead the Jayhawks to the promised land – post Wayne Simien along with guards Aaron Miles and Keith Langford were all in their last season.
That night they all played their last college game.
Langford – bothered by the flu and a sprained ankle – shot 1 for 7. Miles missed all five of his shots in 32 minutes of play. Simien actually had a good look at the game-winning shot as time ran out.
“It felt good, it looked good,” Simien said that night. “The pass was perfect – Christian Laettner-style — without the points.”
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Hawkins that night made the Jayhawks’ only three – the only one he took. His teammates missed 10 others. That, for a team that averaged 6.6 3-pointers per game was in the upper 20% nationally in that category.
Looking back, Flannery concluded his team wasn’t awed against Kansas. The program had been forced to play a series of “guarantee games” just to balance the athletic budget. That season the Bison lost by seven at Iowa State then beat St. Joseph’s and Pitt.
“There was some – I would say confidence,” Flannery said. “I always felt like going into those games and you tip the ball off and you have some size and officials see you have some size you can hang around.
“I won’t say you know you’re going to go in there and beat Kansas in the NCAAs. But it’s something we prepared for. We weren’t intimidated.”
The next season the Bison were even better, winning 27 in 2005-2006 – beating Syracuse and DePaul in the regular season before defeating Arkansas in the tournament. Flannery left coaching following the 2007-2008 season, never to return.
But that night for the first time in six years a No. 3 beat a No. 14 in the tournament. For perhaps the first ever, Self shared a scouting report with an opponent. What difference did it make after the loss? Self and Kansas had no use for the scout on (assumed) second-round opponent Wisconsin. He gave it to Flannery.
“They knew which hand the kid wiped [with],” an amazed Flannery said of Kansas’ breakdown of the Badgers. “It was so different than anything we had ever done.”
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Two days later Wisconsin defeated Bucknell 71-62 in the second round and the story – like so many tournament upsets – quickly faded from view.
Well, sort of. The Bucknell loss would begin a run of tournament losses by Kansas to lesser programs nicknamed by detractors, “The Killer Bs.” That would be Bucknell followed by Bradley in 2006.
That Bucknell game also marked the continued slow transition from Roy Williams to Self. It’s hard to believe today but there was angst among the fans and the players that Williams’ up-tempo style would be altered.
“We probably had six plays at the time [under Williams]. A lot of it was freelance,” Hawkins said. “We had over 20 plays with Coach Self. Once we started getting moving, we started believing in coach …
“We wish we would have bought in a lot more. We were so used to those ‘Roy Boy’ days. We thought there was not another way that was different than Roy’s success.”
Any consideration of that defeat must also mention that 2005 also started a run of 14 consecutive Big 12 titles for Self. (Shared with Oklahoma in ’05). The current Jayhawks have lost the program’s most conference games (nine) since 1983, the same year a gutty sophomore guard named Bill Self led Oklahoma State to the Big Eight Tournament title.
These Jayhawks, like those Jayhawks, come into the conference tournament slumping. Kansas lost six of the last nine 20 years ago. KU comes into this NCAA Tournament 9-9 since mid-January.
But if you think things were bad back then, consider this: It seems almost unconscionable that Kansas is a thinking man’s pick to be a dark horse this week. That’s how far fortunes have declined – at least for now.
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Current conditions are considered a drought that won a national championship a mere three years ago. Kansas hasn’t won the Big 12 regular season since 2023. The last postseason tournament title was 2022. It didn’t even make the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament this season.
That’s also a reminder of how history sometimes comes full circle. Flannery and his wife were flown out to Los Angeles that year to accept an ESPY for “Best Upset.” The Bucknell seniors from 2005 pooled their money – the entire class, not the basketball team – and commissioned a mural of the upset that exists on campus to this day.
Kansas’ Aaron Miles is a New Orleans Pelicans assistant. Bucknell’s Charles Lee is the head coach of the Charlotte Hornets. Flannery is Penn State’s basketball general manager, about to retire in May.
Hawkins has a son at Pembroke Hill – a 6-foot-3 guard named Mavrick. He is being recruited by Bucknell – specifically by Flannery’s son Jesse, an assistant.
“If my son went to Bucknell and played Kansas and I had to wear a Bucknell shirt that would feel a little weird,” Hawkins said.
