Manning finds a home on KU's bench

Danny Manning did not want to talk for this story. There’s a reason. He’s had enough fame. He’s had enough words written about him. He’s a Kansas assistant college basketball coach now. He’s just another guy.

Of course, he’s not just another assistant basketball coach. He’s Danny Manning. He’s one of the greatest college basketball players of them all. He’s Danny of Danny and the Miracles, the remarkable 1988 Kansas national championship team. He’s the first pick in the NBA draft. He’s a guy who scored more than 12,000 points in the NBA and made an All-Star team despite three ACL injuries. He’s a legend who …

“It’s two,” he said.

I’m sorry?

“It’s two,” and he pointed up at the scoreboard over the Sprint Center floor.

This was Friday, during the Kansas State-Texas A&M game. Manning pointed up, and on the screen they were showing one of those basketball shuffle games where three basketballs dribble around, and you are supposed to guess which basketball has the Big 12 logo on it.

“How do you know it’s two?” I ask.

“Because it was three during our game,” he says.

Before I could figure out the logic behind that, the shuffling ended. The basketballs turned. The logo was behind basketball number two. Danny Manning smiled. Something still bothered me, though. Manning made his prediction based on the winning basketball being number three during his Kansas game. But how did he know that? Was he watching the scoreboard during the game?

“Hey,” I asked, “how did you know it was three during your game, anyway?”

He smiled again. “Awareness,” he said.

•••

The question that sparked this story was simple: Why is Danny Manning an assistant basketball coach?

Look: Being an assistant basketball coach is hard work. It’s often thankless work. It’s constant travel. It’s mind-numbing video study. It’s intense, cutthroat recruiting. It’s long days, long nights, working with players, dealing with their problems, enjoying their triumphs, all of it when no one is watching. It’s a job for the young and ambitious, a job for the lifers who just want to be a part of the game.

Danny Manning doesn’t seem to fit. Manning could do anything. He could live the legend’s life of luxury. Here it is, 20 years after he carried his Kansas team to the national title in one of the great virtuoso performances in the history of American sports.

He scored 25 points against Murray State in the second round, but more than that, he willed the Jayhawks to victory in the final 38 seconds. Kansas was losing by one. Manning made a jump hook, then grabbed a rebound, then got fouled, then made two free throws, then knocked away the in-bounds pass. Kansas won by three.

Manning scored 38 against Vanderbilt in the Midwest semifinals.

“I was in his face all the time,” Vanderbilt’s Frank Kornet told reporters. “It truly was frustrating. It was like, ‘When is this man going to miss?’ ”

He scored 25 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, and had four steals and six blocked shots in Kansas’ upset victory over Duke in the semifinals. In the last few minutes of that game, he personally shut down the Blue Devils — the biggest play being a nasty block of Duke star Danny Ferry in the closing minutes.

“Coach looked at Danny in the huddle,” Kansas teammate Scooter Barry said after that game. “And he said, ‘We’ve got 6 minutes left. If you want to take control, now’s the time.’ … So he took control.”

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To reach Joe Posnanski, call 816-234-4361 or send e-mail to jposnanski@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com.