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Texas A&M Head Coach Mark Turgeon takes on his former school, Kansas Saturday at Reed Arena. Turgeon will face off against Kansas Head Coach Bill Self and assistant coach Danny Manning for the first time since the three were part of the Jayhawk basketball program in the mid-80s under then-Kansas coach Larry Brown.

Texas A&M Head Coach Mark Turgeon, right, faces off against Kansas Head Coach Bill Self for the first time. Self was an assistand coach at Kansas in the mid-1980's during Turgeon's tenure as a Jayhawk point guard.

Reunited

Turgeon faces alma mater, Aggies look for tourney berth

By: Bryan McAnally

Posted: 3/7/08

With as much history as the Texas A&M men's basketball team has made this season, it seems only proper that their last game of conference play have the most history leading up to it.

Thus far, the Aggies have played in a game that set a conference record for duration, five-overtimes, and set a conference record for the least amount of points scored in a half, ten. In the 2006-2007 season, A&M set another record against Kansas by being the first Big 12 South team to win in Allen Fieldhouse since the Big 12's inception in 1996.

However, the history between A&M Head Coach Mark Turgeon and the Jayhawks has lasted a lifetime.

Growing up in Topeka, Turgeon had always been an in-state fan of the Jayhawks. Upon graduation from Hayden High School in 1984, Turgeon accepted a scholarship from Larry Brown, then the head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks. Coach Turgeon's college career at Kansas begins the history that leads up to Saturday's game.

When Turgeon was a sophomore, Coach Brown hired recent graduate Bill Self from Oklahoma State University. Years later, Self was made the head basketball coach at Kansas, a position he holds today. However, Turgeon is attempting to look past the coaching matchup and focus more on the Jayhawks as if they were just another Big 12 team.

"It's not about Bill Self," Turgeon said. "Of course it's where I went to school, so of course there will be some emotion there. Once the ball is thrown up, it'll be just another game, and we're preparing for it like it is just another game."

Although Self stayed on as a Kansas assistant for just one year, the 1985-1986 season, the connection between Self and Turgeon thickens. The year Turgeon graduated as a student-athlete from Kansas, he was hired as an assistant coach.

Despite the fact that both coaches served under Brown at one point, Turgeon says that he cannot rely on Self to use similar tactics and strategies developed from his time at Kansas.

"It doesn't work that way," Turgeon said. "He's a heck of a coach, and too much time has gone by."

Turgeon also has close ties to one of the Jayhawk assistant coaches, Danny Manning. An all-star player for Kansas in the mid-80's, Manning and Turgeon played together. Turgeon was an assistant coach for the Jayhawks when they won the National Championship in 1988 and Manning was named the player of the year.

"Now that Danny is back at KU, I see him a lot on the recruiting trail," Turgeon said. "I'm happy for him because he is getting to do what he loves. He loves basketball, and especially Kansas basketball. He was a great player and he made me better when we played together."

All past coaching experiences and Kansas coaching aside, Saturday's game is crucial because it affects both teams' future. As Turgeon puts it, the position of Jayhawks head coach has certain expectations that fans want to see fulfilled come March.

"[Self] wins 80% of his games and they've been to two Final 8's and I think we've got one of the greatest coaches in the country running my old school," Turgeon said. "But there's a lot of pressure being head coach at Kansas. They judge you on what you do later in the post-season."

However, Self isn't alone in what's expected of him regarding the NCAA Tournament. With Billy Gillispie's four year, ever-improving reign at the helm of the Aggie basketball squad, A&M is slowly becoming more of a basketball school.

The NCAA tournament is not unknown to Turgeon. As a player, he appeared in four consecutive tournaments, with a third place finish his junior year. As an assistant coach in 1988, his first year out of college, Turgeon saw the Jayhawks play their way to a national championship for the first time in 36 years.

In five years as an assistant coach at Oregon, Turgeon was able to get the Ducks to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 34 years. Later, at Wichita State University, he led the Shockers to a Sweet Sixteen berth, upsetting No. 10 seed Seton Hall and No. 2 seed Tennessee in the process.

All in all, Turgeon has played on or been at the helm of an NCAA Tournament team seven times. He has been to the Sweet Sixteen three times, the Final Four twice and won one National Championship.

Tomorrow's game brings together the past and present, not just of the players, but of both coaches. A win for the Aggies would pad their résumé come Selection Sunday, while a win for the Jayhawks would move them that much closer to an advantageous No. 1 seed.

"It's a big game," Turgeon said. "Not just because it's the last game of the season, but because it's our senior night and it's against Kansas, one of the best teams in the in country."