Bill Self and three of his Kansas University basketball staff members — Brennan Bechard, Kurtis Townsend and Fred Quartlebaum — marched on foot from Allen Fieldhouse uphill to Wescoe Hall shortly after noon Thursday.
Destination … The Underground, where 12th-year KU coach Self and his aides showed up unannounced to buy lunch for students who happened to be in the area at that time.
Self signed autographs, posed for dozens of “selfies,” then paid a $1,500 tab before ending an hour-long trip to campus by grabbing lunch, himself.
“We came up and hung out with the students. I don’t get a chance to do that very often,” said Self, whose Jayhawks open the 2014-15 exhibition season Monday versus Washburn (7 p.m., Allen). We were able to buy many meals for students as they went through the line, so that was fun.
“It was a good day. It’s always great to interact with the kids. Since we had a day off today, it was a good way to relax a little over lunch,” Self added.
Self in the past has bought pizza and/or donuts for student campers in Allen.
“This place was packed when we came in here,” Self said. Indeed, students who saw Self walking on campus figured he was headed to The Underground.
“When the students camp out (in Allen Fieldhouse), it’s amazing to me that I’ll go down to talk to them, but they never really talk to me. But I come up here and all of them wanted to talk so that was good. It was fun to hang out with them.”
The students had a blast.
“We were down at Summerfield and saw someone’s tweet about it, so we hauled up here to see if he was still here,” KU student Meghan Hyatt said. “It just made my day.”
“It was like a dream come true. This was so awesome,” KU student Matt Pospich said. “I love Bill and I love everything he’s done for the school. I’m still shaking. I knew he would be cool in person.”
Recruiting: KU assistant Norm Roberts on Wednesday paid a visit to the high school of V.J. King, a 6-7 junior forward from Fairfax, Virginia Jayhawkslant.com reports. He’s ranked No. 18 in the Class of 2016. On Thursday, Roberts was to visit Oak Hill Academy’s Rodney Miller, a 6-11 junior ranked No. 65 in the Class of 2016.
Roy under fire: Former KU coach Roy Williams, who had a great time at Monday’s “Celebrating 60 Years” event at KU, did not have as much fun on Wednesday. He did an interview with ESPN at ACC Media Day about various matters including the case of alleged academic fraud at North Carolina. He also was grilled by print media about the matter. Basketball definitely took a back seat to the controversy.
“I’m not gonna rehash all that crap. If you want to talk basketball we’ll do that. I’ve already had 100 million press conferences I think on the other stuff,” Williams told ESPN.
Yet he was willing to answer questions.
“It hurts,” Williams said of unproven allegations that he knew of a scheme to get players enrolled in “paper classes” in the Afro-American studies department. “I’m extremely disappointed and extremely sad because this is my school. This is dominating my time, my life and my thoughts. … I know what we’ve done and what we didn’t do, and I’m proud of what I’ve done and I’m proud of what I didn’t do. I’m 64, so I’m not close to being ready to quit, but you also think, ‘God, I don’t want this to be what people remember about me.”’