Hartman, Kruger and Kansas State

Jerry Tarkanian

Friday, Feb. 27, 2009 | 4:29 p.m.

I’ve been asked about Kansas State and Jack Hartman and Lon Kruger and J.R. Rider, who I recently wrote a little about, but I can tie them all into a column.

I remember when we went to Kansas State in January 1982. Lon was an assistant under Hartman. Brad Rothermel, who was our athletic director, had worked there and introduced me to Lon.

I’ve got a lot of respect for Lon. I like him a lot.

We beat San Diego State, 77-71, at our place on a Saturday. We left Sunday morning for Manhattan, Kan. On the plane, it was real windy. I guess it was snowing or something.

And the plane landed off the runway. Everybody was panicky. Someone asked what I thought. I said, Hell, I had too many other problems. I wasn’t even thinking about that.

Kansas State beat us, 82-65.

But Jack was a tough guy. He led Southern Illinois to the NIT championship in 1967.

When I first got the Long Beach State job, I went to a coaches’ convention. In those days, you’d put your schedule together at that convention. He was complaining that nobody would play him.

I had won three California junior college championships. I said, We’ll play you as long as it’s a home-and-home series. He didn’t want to play Long Beach State.

Jack was a legend, a great coach. He kept beating Kansas all the time, and that was hard to do. I didn’t know him well, but I had a lot of respect for what he did at Kansas State.

When he won that NIT title at Southern Illinois, he had Walt Frazier.

His teams were known for solid basketball. They weren’t a great running team, just solid. They took good shots and executed well. They controlled the ball. He was an outstanding coach.

People were amazed how successful he was at Kansas State. The Wildcats dominated the University of Kansas. That was a big thing. If I’m not mistaken, he did that regularly.

In 1987, Lon’s first season coaching Kansas State, we beat them, 80-61, in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Salt Lake City at the Huntsman Center.

That was our second Final Four team, with Armon Gilliam and Freddie Banks. I remember Rick Majerus, who coached Utah, arranged for us to use their regular practice gym. He was really good to us, a great friend.

I don’t remember much about that Kansas State game. They weren’t a real good team but they had a great shooter, Mitch Richmond. He played 14 seasons in the NBA.

We got a lead pretty early and kept it the whole way. I was always impressed with Lon because Brad told me so much about him, that he really was a super guy. That is true.

We got J.R. Rider because of Lon.

J.R. was playing in Vegas with his summer team when I was giving a speech on Harmon, across from where the Hard Rock is. I did a radio interview, then I went to go to the restroom.

J.R. introduced himself to me. He says, Coach, I really want to come to your school. I didn’t even know who he was. I said, That’s good. I’ll have an assistant coach check you out.

Mark Warkentien, one of my assistants at that time, said he was a helluva player. But something happened. He didn’t play his senior season in high school.

He went off the radar. I didn’t think anything more of him. Then I read in a USA Today article that he was at a junior college in Kansas and Kansas State was recruiting him.

He was averaging 28 points. He was having a great season. Then Lon left for Florida. When that happened, I called J.R. He said, Coach, that’s where I always wanted to go.

We pulled him out of that JC and put him at Antelope Valley JC, where my son George was an assistant coach.

J.R. came here and had two fine seasons, in 1991-92 for me and 1992-93 for Rollie Massimino.

J.R. averaged 29.1 points as a senior, the second-best season in school history. And his career average of 24.9 points is second on the all-time chart, too, behind Elburt Miller’s 29.3.