Earl Richardson/Journal-World PhotoRoy Williams may or may not be able to top himself.
“I’m really stressed out right now because I don’t know what else to come back with after the monkey,” Williams, Kansas University’s men’s basketball coach, said on Tuesday.
The master motivator’s players took turns knocking a stuffed monkey off his back at a team meeting the night before KU’s 87-58 victory over Syracuse on Sunday at Dayton Arena.
It was symbolic of Williams’ personal monkey KU’s inability to get past a second-round NCAA Tourney opponent the past three seasons.
“I’m sort of at the bottom of the barrel. Maybe I’ve got to find a big gorilla, maybe get back to the Final Four to get the big gorilla off my back,” Williams said.
“Maybe I’ve got to get what was the name of the orangutan in the movie with Clint Eastwood? Clyde? Maybe I’ve got to find Clyde somewhere, bring Clyde in and let ’em (players) knock Clyde off my back.”
KU’s coach was speaking of the ape in the Clint Eastwood movie, “Every Which Way But Loose.”
The Jayhawks (26-6) must beat Illinois (26-7) at 9:20 p.m. Friday at the Alamodome in San Antonio, then topple either Mississippi or Arizona Sunday to reach their first Final Four since 1993.
“I hope the kids have enjoyed it so far. At the same time, I don’t want them to be satisfied,” Williams said. “If you feel yourself satisfied, you also feel your forward motion stopping. I don’t want our forward motion to stop.”
For sure he will use plenty of words to try to inspire his troops.
“I’ll try to show them what else is in front of them. There’s a big prize out there,” Williams said of the Final Four. “If you think college basketball is fun making the Sweet 16, you ought to make the Final Four.
“They have no idea, you (media) have no idea how much fun that is. I am very intelligent. I am not intelligent enough to explain to ’em how much fun that is. I’ll say, ‘This is great. While we are here let’s try to do the whole thing. You do that by focusing on playing your best basketball against Illinois.”’
KU point guard Kirk Hinrich, who suffered a deep left thigh bruise in the first half of Sunday’s game, is wearing a thigh pad at practice.
“It’s so I don’t get it irritated at practice,” Hinrich said. “Hopefully I won’t have to wear it in the game Friday.
“Yesterday it was really sore. Today it feels a lot better,” Hinrich reported Tuesday.
He had electrical stem and ice treatments Monday and Tuesday.
“Yesterday it hurt pretty bad,” he said. “I had trouble getting up and sitting down. Today it’s a lot better.”
Hinrich faces a major test Friday against Illinois’ Frank Williams.
“He’s good, very good,” Hinrich saif of the point guard who averages 14.7 points and 4.4 assists per game. “He can shoot it, take it to the basket. I think he’s the MVP of their team.”
Soph forward Drew Gooden was asked if he knows much about San Antonio, specifically the Alamo.
“I heard a story about some crazy guy who urinated on the Alamo and was banned from Texas. It’s the only thing I’ve heard about the Alamo so far. I’m from California. I can tell you a lot about the Santa Clara mission in California, not the Alamo,” Gooden said.
Gooden was asked if he wishes he could spend spring break at some exotic island.
“I watch ‘MTV’ and the ‘E’ channel. I try to fantasize I’m on a beach somewhere. Then I try to forget that. I’d rather have a trip to the Final Four than to Cancun,” he said. “I feel good about going to the Sweet 16 on my spring break.”
Williams is holding tough practices this week as he did last week. That means two hours of no-nonsense basketball.
“I told them the week before the conference tournament it was the shortest practice I had in my life. It didn’t work,” Williams said.
KU lost in the Big 12 semifinals to Oklahoma.
“I said, ‘If you think I want to do the same thing before the NCAA Tournament and it didn’t work.’ I don’t want to sit back in the summer and say, ‘You big dummy, why didn’t you change something?’
“We worked our tails off last week and will try to do it again. They didn’t like it (last week). They didn’t like it when I was telling ’em about it. They survived it. Closer to Friday we’ll pull it back some.”
Williams held up a T-shirt at his weekly press conference.
“I’m still embarrassed about things,” the coach said. “I’m embarrassed when they make a T-shirt with my picture on it about a monkey, that kind of thing. Now they are going to have to make another one because they sold all those.”
The shirt shows Williams’ likeness and the likeness of KU’s stuffed monkey Stank ’em.
