Scot Pollard reserves his cheers for just one college basketball team — his alma mater, Kansas University.
And so Monday night, while watching the national-championship game on TV with some of his Indiana Pacers teammates, Pollard was not pulling for the guys in the powder-blue North Carolina jerseys.
“I was rooting for coach Williams and not North Carolina. Like I tell everybody, there’s a difference,” Pollard said in a phone interview.
“I’m happy for coach. He gets the monkey off his back, and people will stop asking him about having the most (tourney) wins of any active coach who’d not won the championship yet. Now Eddie (Sutton) gets the crown.
“Now that he’s won a ring, he’s right up there with (Mike) Krzyzewski and Dean Smith, who I think he was ahead of anyway. He has the better winning percentage.”
The always outspoken Pollard took advantage of a rare NBA day off Feb. 27 to watch KU clip Oklahoma State, 81-79. KU went just 2-3 in its next five games, bowing to Bucknell in the first round of the NCAAs.
“That (OSU) was a tremendous game,” said Pollard, who with his wife and two daughters makes Lawrence his offseason home. “I guess I didn’t get a chance to see the games before or after that. I saw the second half of the Bucknell game. To me it looked like we peaked early and did not have much gas left in the tank.”
Pollard said fans could give current coach Bill Self an assist by forgetting about former coach Williams.
“I think they should get over it,” Pollard said. “He’s gone. Kansas basketball will go on. Get behind Bill. He is the man and the right coach for KU basketball.”
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Cleveland Cavaliers’ Drew Gooden on Williams: “It was good to see him get, not the monkey, but the gorilla off his back,” Gooden told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, indicating he phoned Williams before the start of the Final Four. “Watching him win the championship made me feel like Kansas won it.”
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More ex-Jayhawk reactions: Ex-Jayhawks Raef LaFrentz and Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics also were pleased.
“Everyone talks about how he always cried at the end of those games (tourney losses at KU),” LaFrentz told the Boston Herald. “But, shoot, I wouldn’t want a coach who didn’t. This got that big gorilla off his back. In my eyes, he’s top-five (coach) in the history of basketball.”
“I’m happy for Roy Williams. I’m going to try give him a call today,” Celts’ forward Pierce told the Boston Globe on Tuesday. “He finally got that gorilla off his back.”
Pierce for the third straight year won the Celts’ basketball pool by picking North Carolina over Illinois. Syracuse and Wake Forest were his other two Final Four teams.
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Brown ‘bleeding blue’: Detroit Pistons coach Larry Brown, a UNC grad, wore Carolina blue and white at practice Tuesday.
“I am probably bleeding blue. That was an amazing game. It was wonderful. Great for our game, two great teams, well coached, just did everything the right way. Kinda neat,” former KU coach Brown told the Detroit News.
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Off night: Kirk Hinrich wasn’t in a chatty mood when the Chicago Tribune asked him about Williams’ title. Hinrich failed to score or grab a rebound while playing 16 minutes of a loss against Miami. He didn’t play the final 19:50.
“I’m assuming (coach Scott Skiles) took me out because he thought I wasn’t playing well,” said Hinrich. He said he planned to phone Williams this week.
Dallas Mavericks center Raef LaFrentz will miss three-to-six weeks to nurse a severely sprained right ankle. LaFrentz, a Kansas University product, was injured Saturday early in the third quarter against Phoenix.
Sacramento, Calif. Sacramento Kings backup forward Scot Pollard has missed two straight games because of a strained lower back. He doesn’t know when he’ll return.