As the Kansas basketball players left their team’s practice Monday afternoon, they spotted a row of students seated along the walls of the Allen Fieldhouse hallways. The students were waiting in line for tickets, camped out five days in advance to witness a game nearly nine years in the making.
Saturday, Missouri will travel to Kansas for the first regular-season matchup between the two rivals since 2012. The series formerly known as the Border War paused when Missouri left the Big 12 to become a member of the SEC, and the subsequent nine-year ceasefire means that few of the participants this year will have experienced the rivalry firsthand. None of Missouri’s players or coaches have ever taken part in the series, aside from a preseason exhibition in 2017. Of those on the sideline Saturday, only Kansas coach Bill Self and longtime assistant Kurtis Townsend will have either played or coached in a game that counts between the Tigers and Jayhawks.
But despite their lack of familiarity with the rivalry, the players have already gotten a whiff of the intensity that has always characterized the series — as evidenced by the students camped out for tickets. By Tuesday afternoon, there were roughly 100 students in line. Ochai Agbaji and Chris Teahan, Kansas seniors who have played against multiple top-five opponents inside Allen Fieldhouse, said they’ve never seen that many people camped out that early.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many campers out there since I’ve been here, for any game,” Agbaji told reporters Thursday. “So it’s really cool to see that.”
The student campers served as a visual reminder that, even after the two teams haven’t faced each other in nearly a decade and even though No. 8 Kansas opened as a 25-point favorite against 5-4 Missouri, this rivalry still brings plenty of juice. Both coaches acknowledged that this isn’t just another game. Cuonzo Martin called Missouri and Kansas “one of the top five games, historically” in college basketball. He wants his players to embrace the magnitude of the rivalry.
“It’s a game on the floor, but it’s more than that,” Martin said. “Because the fans, the energy, everything around it makes it that. I don’t think it necessarily means anything that nobody in the program has been in it.”
Self was a bit more reserved in his comments to reporters, but his players said that, behind closed doors, he’s made it clear that this game is special. Agbaji described Self as “amped.”
“You can tell from the seriousness in his voice that this is for real,” Teahan said of Self, “and I think everyone kind of is starting to understand that.”
Self, who has coached 19 games against Missouri since taking over the Kansas job in 2003, has become the eldest statesman of the series. He rattled off memories of Border Wars past on Thursday: David Padgett’s game-winning buzzer-beater in 2004 in the final game played in the Hearnes Center; Thomas Gardner’s 41-point outburst in Missouri’s 2006 overtime win; the two nailbiters in 2012, one won by each side. Self acknowledged that his players probably don’t fully grasp the intensity of the rivalry, saying he would show his team some videos of past games between Missouri and Kansas prior to tipoff.
But already, the players can sense that something is different. Self said that former Kansas guard Sherron Collins spoke to the team about playing Missouri earlier this week. And even a few current participants have ties to the rivalry.
Kansas senior guard Christian Braun is the brother of former Missouri player Parker Braun. His mother, Lisa Sandbothe, and his aunt Lori Sandbothe both played basketball for the Missouri women’s team in the late 1980s and early ‘90s, and his uncle Mike Sandbothe played for the Tiger men from 1986-89. Yet Christian, following in the footsteps of his father, grew up a Kansas fan.
“It was a big Mizzou family,” Braun said Thursday. “Me and my dad were always kind of on the other side. But I always tell people I was always on the winning side.”
Self said Braun has spoken to the Jayhawk locker room about what the Missouri-Kansas rivalry means to fans. Teahan has insight into what it means for the players. His older brother, Connor Teahan, played at Kansas from 2007-2012. Chris’ last in-person experience with the rivalry was watching from the Mizzou Arena stands as Marcus Denmon went on a personal 9-0 run in the final minutes (with Connor defending him) to lift Missouri to a three-point victory.
Braun and Agbaji, both of whom grew up in the Kansas City area, said they never saw the hostility subside between Missouri and Kansas fans, even when the two teams weren’t playing one another.
“It never really died to me, to be honest,” said Braun. “I think that every year, you would get those comments from people about KU and Mizzou. So I don't think the rivalry ever went away, we just didn’t play each other for a little bit.”
On the Missouri side, Martin said a few former players spoke to the team during the offseason and touched on the rivalry with Kansas. The current team has also picked up on the buzz around campus and on social media.
“I’ve been talking to my tutors and stuff like that,” DaJuan Gordon said. “They’re telling me how big it is because they all went here. It’s with the media, too. So seeing the players from last year talk about it and the players from previous years talk about it, it’s a big thing.”
Knowing this game means a bit more is one thing. Preparing for the atmosphere that awaits inside Allen Fieldhouse Saturday will be another — for both teams. Self noted that Kansas hasn’t played in front of a truly raucous home crowd since March of 2020 due to attendance restrictions last season. He expressed a bit of concern about his team getting too fired up, saying “this one will be a game where you probably have to tone it down a little bit.”
Meanwhile, seven of Missouri’s 12 scholarship players have never played a college road game in front of a full-capacity crowd. Gordon, the lone Tiger player who has experienced a game at Kansas while playing his first two seasons at Kansas State, said “the floor’s going to be shaking.”
Martin said it will be important for his team to approach the game one possession at a time rather than getting flustered by the crowd, but he’s not afraid of the raucous atmosphere.
“You hope there’s every seat filled, everything outside filled, every restaurant filled,” Martin said. “You want all of that. And that’s what this rivalry is supposed to bring. You want all of that, so everybody is talking about it for a long time, until you play it again.”
If the line of students camped out five days in advance is any indication, filling ever seat shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not just students or fans who are eager to be in the building, either. Self said he expects more than 20 former Kansas players to be in attendance.
Ever since the two schools announced the rivalry would resume, the buzzy phrase has been that the Border War is “back.” But the buildup to this weekend’s renewal of the rivalry — the demand to be in the building, the stories about past matchups, the anticipation for the atmosphere — show that the rivalry never stopped existing for the fans. The players and coaches are excited to be able to settle it on the hardwood once again.
“I hope it’s what it’s supposed to be,” Martin said. “I would beg for that as a ball player. I want it to be whatever you have. I want your best shot.”
Talk about this story and more in The Tigers' Lair
Make sure you're caught up on all the Tiger news and headlines
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for video and live streaming coverage
