Kansas vs. Missouri Basketball Game at Allen Fieldhouse

The fire between the Kansas Jayhawks and the Missouri Tigers needs no stoking.

The two have been rivals since the Civil War era, when open violence between pro- and anti-slavery elements broke out in what were then the Western Frontier towns of Missouri and the Kansas Territory.

That fervor has never relented, but the early athletic matches between the universities of Kansas and Missouri are said to have helped assuage some post-Civil War tensions.

But the niceties stop there.

The Allen Fieldhouse, Kansas’ home court, has seen the Jayhawks take the record for consecutive home wins in the NCAA, with 62 ending in 1998. Former Missouri coach Norm Stewart let the rivalry take a commercial tone – when playing the Jayhawks at Allen Fieldhouse (in Kansas), he made his players stay in a hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, eat in a restaurant in Missouri, and even fill up their gas tanks before crossing the state line, so as to not put any money into the Kansas economy.

No doubt a storied place to see a game.