Gazette had an interesting bit of information. ISU has beaten a No. 1 ranked team three times; last night, OU in 2016, and KU 1957. Boy it feels like we have done that a few more times than that. Anyone know if that stat is correct or not?
Historical record vs No.1
- Thread starter keepngoal
- Start date
I thought KU was #1 the same year we beat Oklahoma at Hilton?
What's more unbelievable is The Gazette covered the game.
They were #4. They'd lost to Oklahoma State the week before and then beat Iowa State as #1 in the last game of the regular season.
After the obit of that Iowa game.
Heard this and thinking of all those wins Johnny had against OU, Mizzou and KU at Hilton and Fred's season's, I didn't believe it. Would have figured there was more.
Flagging for @cyclones500 for inclusion in his quarterly best posts on CF thread.
It does seem like we’d have more than three vs. No. 1, but maybe some were top 5 and are just mashed into memory as being ranked higher.
A few I found ... I didn’t do a thorough search or for each year, mostly from the Orr seasons:
KU in ’84 was unranked
KU in ’85 was #10
KU in ’86 was #4
OU in ’86 was #5
KU in ’87 was #15
KU in ’88 was #16 (ISU was #15)
Missouri in ’89 was #3
KU in ’92 was #3
OSU in ’92 was #2
(at) KU in ’05 was #2 (the Stinson teardrop shot)
(Missouri in ’83, the “Birth of Hilton Magic” game, was “only” #10)
I get that it’s fun to report, but the angle of “first time beaten a #1 ranked team since 2016” is actually probably a positive stat for a program.
Most teams probably only play a #1 ranked team once every 4-5 years on average and obviously harder to beat #1 than an average team so we aren’t talking about 50/50 games, beating two of them in a 6 year span is probably waaaaaaaay above average even if you only count P6 programs.
My memory is so bad I can barely even remember that OU was #1 in 2016. Guessing that’s when Buddy Heild (currently known as Tyrese Haliburton’s sidekick) was lighting world on fire. I mean I remember his teams were good but don’t remember them as “#1” caliber. I think the ever obnoxious rebounding machine Spangler was there too or maybe he had left?
Most teams probably only play a #1 ranked team once every 4-5 years on average and obviously harder to beat #1 than an average team so we aren’t talking about 50/50 games, beating two of them in a 6 year span is probably waaaaaaaay above average even if you only count P6 programs.
My memory is so bad I can barely even remember that OU was #1 in 2016. Guessing that’s when Buddy Heild (currently known as Tyrese Haliburton’s sidekick) was lighting world on fire. I mean I remember his teams were good but don’t remember them as “#1” caliber. I think the ever obnoxious rebounding machine Spangler was there too or maybe he had left?
OU was ranked 1, 2 or 3 from mid-December until late-February. Fell off a little after that to drop to a 2 seed by tournament time.
Oddly, OU remained at #1 for more than 2 weeks after the ISU loss ... I think several other top 5's lost games in that range so that's why there wasn't a big drop (plus we were top 20 anyway so it wasn't a "bad" loss by any means).
And yes, that team had Spangler (and Cousins) in addition to Hield.
That was the year we pulled OU as a #4 seed in Kansas City for the Big12 when they spent majority of season as #1 team in country. That was a rediculous year for the big 12.
It's not easy to play against the number 1 team in the country overall when there's 350+ teams in it, and it's even harder to actually beat that team. Wonder what the all time records against the number 1 ranked team is for everyone tbh
This. Pretty rare to actually get the chance to play #1. 3 wins against #1 is pretty solid.
Big 12 has been the best conference for over a decade now.
The only real debate is how much reality matters vs what gets reported. That’s a prime example of it and that was 6 years ago now.