Not that Keith Langford’s eyeballs were as big as manhole covers and as bright as Las Vegas Boulevard, but the Kansas University sophomore concedes he was indeed a starry-eyed freshman at last year’s NCAA Final Four.
“I think so … as a matter of fact, I know so,” Langford said. “It was a beautiful experience. And I think I’ll be starry-eyed again, but I can’t let that affect me on the court.”
In theory — and no basketball game ever has been won on theory — Kansas should have an advantage in New Orleans this weekend because the bulk of the Jayhawks were at last year’s Final Four in Atlanta.
In theory — oops, there’s that word again — all but a couple of the Jayhawks should be all that much better by having gone to Atlanta and learned how to deal with the inevitable distractions.
“It’s a different mind-set this year,” senior Nick Collison said. “There’s so much hoopla. Our mind-set is, we’ve been through that, and I think we can focus more on Marquette.”
Not that the Jayhawks didn’t focus on Maryland in last year’s semifinal, Collison quickly added.
“It’s just different this year,” he said.
To tell the truth, distractions probably don’t mean all that much once the referee throws the ball in the air.
It’s unlikely, for instance, that during those long television timeouts, players worry about being unable to obtain a ticket for Aunt Myrtle, about how something they said in one of the countless pregame interviews might have been misinterpreted or if they’ll have time to buy a souvenir for second cousin Elmo back in Cornpone, Iowa.
Once the game begins, minds don’t wander.
Roy Williams has absorbed enough information in a quarter of a century as an assistant coach at North Carolina and as head coach at Kansas to conclude that time spent worrying about distractions is probably better spent having a good time. Anyway, he has no strategic manual for dealing with them.
“That might be overrated,” Williams said.
Back in the ’80s and early ’90s, Georgetown coach John Thompson would sequester his teams far away from NCAA venues, fearing his players could not concentrate if surrounded by bands, fans, cheerleaders, etc. Later, the NCAA passed legislation preventing coaches from turning their players into hermits at tourney time.
Even the legendary Dean Smith used the out-of-town approach back in 1981 when Williams was an assistant and the Final Four was in downtown Philadelphia.
“We were out by Villanova,” Williams recalled, “and we didn’t see so much as a balloon. We thought we had two road games.”
Indiana clipped the Tar Heels, 63-50, in the championship game that year and, if you know anything about coaches’ mind-sets, you may suspect Smith abandoned the commuter strategy the next time the Tar Heels went to the Final Four.
Good guess. In fact, North Carolina made it to the Final Four the very next year which also happened to be the first year the Louisiana Superdome was the site.
Where did the Tar Heels stay that time? At the Hotel Monteleone in downtown New Orleans. Who won the national title? North Carolina did, edging Georgetown, 63-62. Guess where Williams wanted to stay this week in New Orleans. Right again. The Hotel Monteleone. Sorry, Roy. Hotels are pre-assigned by the NCAA and Marquette drew those digs this year.
So the Kansas contingent will unload its suitcases tonight in the New Orleans Sheraton which is fine with Williams because he has never stayed in that hotel before.
“Just as long as it isn’t the Fairmont,” Williams quipped. “It’s a fine hotel, but I’ll stay on a park bench before I stay there again.”
Ten years ago, Kansas qualified for the NCAA Final Four, also in New Orleans, but the Jayhawks fell to North Carolina in a semifinal.
Do I need to tell you the name of the Kansas hotel in 1993? Hint: The name starts with an F.
Maybe it isn’t the distractions that are most troublesome aspect of a Final Four. Maybe it’s really the superstitions.