Kansas basketball: Ranking the 10 most underappreciated Jayhawks of all-time

No. 6: Wayne Hightower (1959-1961)

Kansas basketball career stats: 53 games, 21.3 PPG, 10.8 RPG, 40.4% FG

It’s needless to say that college basketball fans in 2023 are not going to be running around discussing the achievements of Wayne Hightower 60+ years ago. However, his statistics at Kansas are too absurd to ignore. Although his low shooting percentage is unsightly, that was the norm for bigs during that age — players would continually throw up tip-ins until one fell.

Hightower was extremely tall for the era he played in, allowing him to rebound and score over smaller defenders at an elite level. He and Bill Bridges formed a twin tower frontcourt for head coach Dick Harp, leading the Jayhawks to an Elite Eight appearance in 1960. Hightower followed up that season with another double-double average which earned him Consensus Third Team All-American honors.

His most infamous moment at the university was when he threw a punch during the 1961 Kansas-Mizzou brawl, initiating one of the most vicious fights the sport had ever seen. However, his name should be up there with Bridges and Wilt Chamberlain as one of the program’s greatest big men of that era.