**4:27 p.m.: SAN ANTONIO -** Boy, by the time KU’s locker room opened up this afternoon (and UNC’s a few moments later), everything just felt so played out already. Defending Tyler Hansbrough, the pace of the game, Roy Williams and some connection to KU everyone seems to be talking about. That said, here’s some other stuff from Friday afternoon in the locker rooms in San Antonio.**-Had a chance to spend some time with UNC junior guard Danny Green.** Here’s what the Tar Heels’ sixth man (11.4 ppg, 4.9 rpg) [had to say … in Q&A format.][1]**-Some of the players in the KU locker room session were asked about Brandon Rush’s emotional practice moment earlier this week.** Russell Robinson said earlier in this blog that it’s the second time he’d ever seen that from B-Rush. Some of his other teammates had equally shocked reactions.”When Brandon does that, guys get humor out of that, because we’re not used to Brandon saying anything,” Darnell Jackson said. “But he got mad, and everyone picked it up.”Mario Chalmers, Rush’s closest pal on the team, said he wasn’t there (P.S. I’m not buyin’ it).”I think I might have gone to the bathroom when that happened,” said Chalmers, drawing a chuckle. “I don’t know, but he doesn’t do that very often. But when he does do that, he’s ready – he’s getting ready.”Jeremy Case was also pretty insightful on the meaning of Rush’s emotion.”I think it’s really encouraging,” the fifth-year senior said. “I think it shows he cares a lot. A lot of people were questioning that because he always kept the same demeanor and he was always real laid back.”How about the man himself?”I snapped on Darnell a little bit,” Rush said. “We were doing something on the defensive end and somebody scored and I got a little angry. I was just mad at the time. I was a little frustrated the whole day because coach Self was on me the whole time, so somebody else made a mistake and I got on them.”Honestly? Brandon Rush has a history of playing an insanely solid brand of basketball when he’s really dialed in. This could be a sign of what’s to come Saturday. Of course, it could not. There’s no reading Brandon, if we’ve learned anything over the past few years. We’ll get into predictions and all that tomorrow.**-Maybe my favorite locker room moment of the day came from Patrick Moody,** a UNC walk-on and younger brother of former KU super-walk-on **Christian Moody.**Christian is in Australia right now, and won’t be at this weekend’s Final Four.I asked Patrick about drawing inspiration from Christian’s unknown benchwarmer to senior starter story. He said he actually keeps a DVD around that a family friend put together of [the piece ESPN ran during College GameDay back in 2005][2] on his brother’s tale.”I actually watch that before big game or practices just to get pumped up and help me focus on my goals and stuff,” Patrick said.Heartwarming.**-Here’s one final look for the day at** the weekend’s [paparazzi photo gallery][3], now featuring a few photos from Friday afternoon’s happenings.**-Finally, earlier in the day, while hanging out during the UCLA open ‘practice,** was able to get a couple minutes with **[John Feinstein,][4]** one of the most notable sportswriters of this generation. Lately, I’ve read three of his books (**_Let Me Tell You A Story_**, **_Next Man Up: A Year Behind The Lines in Today’s NFL_** and **_The Punch_** – all I highly recommend). He also penned **_Season On The Bring_**, maybe his most famous college hoops book. He also talked about his new book a bit, [Living On The Black][5], which sounds right up any baseball nut’s alley. A very friendly guy, and here’s what had had to say … **RG:** _Obviously, we know you’ve always been a big NCAA Tournament and Final Four guy. With all four No. 1 seeds being here, among the final fours you’ve seen, where could this one rank? How cool is it to get all four No. 1 seeds?_**JF:** I think the best thing about it is it should lead to really good basketball games. You never know. I mean, last year we had two ones and two twos and the Final Four was a dud. So there’s no guarantee. Butyou would think that with four teams who – I mean, to me, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out these are the four best teams all year. You look at their records, who they beat, and also, if I were to say to you ‘OK, who’s the fifth-best team?’ You really can’t come up with somebody right away.**RG:** _There’s about five teams that could fit in there…_**JF:** Yeah, and none of them, I probably would have said Texas, and Memphis killed them. So I think that’s the potentially good part of it. And you obviously have three of the most traditional programs in the history of the game playing, and that’s kind of cool, too. And we’ll just see. I always like it when there’s a Cinderella team because it gives me something to write about, but this year it didn’t happen.**RG:** _Does Kansas kind of have any kind of an underdog role? They’re not a Cinderella, but they might be the least talked about team here, and they’re kind of being overshadowed with the whole Carolina thing._**JF:** I think because of the four, Carolina was the one team that was never seriously threatened. Their closest margin was 10 against Louisville. And all the other three teams had a danger game – Kansas obviously against Davidson, Memphis against Mississippi State and UCLA against Texas A&M. So I think because of that, people are saying if there’s a favorite, it’s Carolina. Well, if Carolina’s the favorite, Kansas is naturally the closest thing we have to an underdog.**RG:** _Well, of all the Final Fours you’ve seen, what’s the best one you’ve ever seen, front-to-end, all three games?_**JF:** That’s a good question. I always think of ’85, because the final was so remarkable. The semis, the Villanova-Memphis game was a good game, Georgetown-St. John’s was a blowout. So it’s hard to say. 1988, you had three very good games. Kansas and Duke was a good game, Oklahoma-Arizona, and then the final was a great game. In ’83, you had that remarkable game between Louisville and Houston in one semifinal, and then the remarkable finish to the NC State-Houston game. So those come to mind right away. ’04 we had a great semifinal day and then a dud final. ’03 was pretty good, too, except that the first game was a blowout, the Marquette-Kansas game. But the second semi and the final was a great game. So there are a bunch of ’em. The one that I remember the most was ’85. And then ’91 was a fascinating Final Four, because you had Roy vs. Dean in the first game, and Dean got ejected. Then you had Duke beating the unbeatable Vegas team in the second game. And then you had a good final – not a classic – but a very good final between Duke and Kansas, Krzyzewski finally winning the first national title. So that one was pretty good, too.**Seems like a good spot to end today’s fun.** We’ll get things started tomorrow in the mid-afternoon with our pick the score contest. Congratulations to **westsideandy,** winner of last Sunday’s deal. E-mail your information to rgreene@ljworld.com with your address and T-shirt size to claim your glorious prize. (Same goes for **thetagger** and **bradam,** who won last Friday)**2:50 p.m.: SAN ANTONIO -** Just got back from the KU and UNC locker room sessions. I’ll have some quotes up in a few minutes, but first some more details on the Rod Stewart situation:-As you may have seen from the story on the front page, it is diagnosed now as a fractured knee cap. Stewart will have surgery performed on it when the team returns to Lawrence after the Final Four, whenever that may be.-Darrell Arthur said that, from his information, Stewart slipped on a wet spot on the floor, which ultimately led to the injury unfolding.-Brandon Rush, Jeremy Case and Darrell Arthur all said it brought down the spirits in the locker room some after practice. But all three said it could be spun into a positive, with KU potentially using the injury as a rallying cry before tomorrow’s game.Again, be back with some KU quotes in a bit, plus a Q&A with North Carolina’s Danny Green.**1:46 p.m.: SAN ANTONIO -** If you guys were wondering why the quotation marks around the word ‘practices’ when describing today, it’s because these are pretty much just for show. There’s cheerleaders, pep bands, mascots, halfcourt shots and dunks. Though KU’s days of dunking in these might be done, as [Rod Stewart sustained what appears to be a serious knee injury][6] today during KU’s open session, which just wrapped up. We’ll have more on him later this afternoon, I’m sure, as soon as we get it.**FROM TODAY’S BREAKOUT SESSIONS**I took some time to sit in on Russell Robinson and Sasha Kaun during their sessions in the player breakout rooms.Robinson had maybe the day’s most interesting nugget yet, talking about **Brandon Rush snapping in practice the other day**.”We were on defense, guarding Carolina’s stuff,” Robinson recalled. “And it was kind of tough. We kinda got a little bit of miscommunication on some defensive possessions, and he kinda snapped, and was getting on guys for making mistakes. It was kinda surprising to see Brandon do that. “I’ve seen him do it one other time, and that was it. Two times in three years with him. Everybody sits back and, can’t get mad at him. You just start laughing and say ‘Wow, look at you.'”He said the other time was ‘maybe’ sometime earlier this season.”You’re not used to seeing that out of Brandon,” Robinson continued. “He’s definitely taken strides in hte right direction … Brandon, he’s a laid back guy, but I do see him stepping up. I think he’s becoming more of a leader, becoming more vocal in that sense.”Rush is averaging 17.5 points per game in KU’s last six outings, and 13.1 for the season.**As for the Sasha Kaun session…**The obvious topic was Tyler Hansbrough. Here’s what the big guy had to spew:”We watched a lot of tape, just kind of breaking down some things to do. We just have to try to match his energy, because he never takes a possession off. He Always goes after balls, shoots it, goes and gets it. We have to keep that in mind and try to stay out of foul trouble … He knows how to get his shot up, using his body to block you off. You just have to match his energy up and trey to eliminate some easy points that he always gets off of dunks and offensive rebounds and stuff, just try to match his energy up, box him out, put a body on him and try to wear him down … We really haven’t played anybody like that.”Heading now to the KU locker room for some more stuff, then to Roy Williams’ press conference. Be back with all of that.**11:04 a.m.: SAN ANTONIO -** New day, same old humidity. Though this time there’s a friendly smattering of rain mixed in.Won’t affect us too much today, though, as we’re hunkered down now in the media workroom at the Alamodome. Walked around the grounds a bit, snapped some photos, including a few of the floor, and they’ve been added to the [paparazzi photo gallery I’m periodically updating all weekend][3].**As for this afternoon,** the rest of the day will be spent collecting notes, quotes, photos and some video around the dome. Here’s the schedule or notable happenings…-KU takes the floor for open ‘practice’ around 1:00 p.m., and will go for roughly 50 minutes. Should be good for a highlight dunk or four. For whatever reason the KU players haven’t been as into hamming it up for the crowd on hand during those ‘practices’ this year as they’ve been in recent years.-The Jayhawks have different interview sessions set up for throughout the afternoon, with the always-most intriguing being the locker room, from 2:00-2:30. The itinerary says ‘in or outside of the locker room’. That probably means outside, if teams are given a choice. That’s too bad, because the Tournament shows that you get better rapport and flow going with athletes in an interview setting when it takes place in the locker room.-UNC practices from 3:10-4:00, and the Heels are the last ones to do so. Their locker room session is from 2:30-3:00, and Roy Williams will be speaking at the podium from 2:45-3:00. I’m heading to that for sure, as it could get interesting. Not sure why, just a gut feeling.I’ll be back throughout the afternoon with stuff of some variety.[The Greene Room Live: Day One in San Antonio][7] [NCAA Home Page][8] [1]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2008/apr/04/few_good_minutes_uncs_danny_green/ [2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmSVhsJSxaw [3]:
[4]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Feinstein [5]: http://www.amazon.com/Living-Black-Pitchers-Season-Remember/dp/0316113913 [6]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2008/apr/04/stewart_hurts_knee_during_open_practice/ [7]: http://www2.kusports.com/blogs/greene_room/2008/apr/03/live_sanantonio1/ [8]: http://www.ncaasports.com
