But one day before the national championship game between KU and Memphis, Jackson sounded more like a spectator sitting in row 50 with a bag of popcorn.
“Sometimes,” Jackson said, “I do catch myself being a fan. There are a lot of great players out there. CDR (Chris Douglas-Roberts), Brandon Rush, Derrick Rose, Mario Chalmers, it’s just back and forth. They’re going to be unbelievable.”
Finally, it’s the players’ turn. The coaching story lines have vanished. KU coach Bill Self made his Final Four. The Jayhawks buried former coach Roy Williams and his Tar Heels. It’s not about the coaches, about the angry fans, about the past.
Tonight, it’s about the guys on the floor.
Get ready for the show.
There couldn’t be two teams that deserve a captive audience more than Memphis and Kansas. The Tigers, 38-1, and Jayhawks, 36-3, have been steamrolling toward this night since the beginning of the season. In late January, a meeting in April looked inevitable. Memphis was ranked No. 1, and KU No. 2. It’s no coincidence that the last two undefeated teams — neither school had lost until KU fell to Kansas State on Jan. 30 — are now the last ones standing.
Memphis senior Joey Dorsey remembers a night earlier this season when the Tigers gathered at coach John Calipari’s house. They turned on the tube and saw the future right in front of them.
“Kansas was playing,” Dorsey said. “(Calipari) was like, ‘They play just like us. They’re very long and athletic, and the style they play, they get up and down.’ We always had it in our heads that we were going to play against Kansas.”
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The talk of the day Sunday was the similarities between the two teams. No doubt, Calipari’s and Self’s programs have been built with NBA talent, and it starts with finding ways to recruit the nation’s top players to the middle of the country.
Some may think Self has it pretty easy. He can sell Kansas’ tradition and history. He can sell those banners in Allen Fieldhouse and the fact that the program hasn’t missed out on an NCAA Tournament — not including the year it was on probation in 1989 — since 1983.
“There’s so much to sell,” Self said. “First thing I’ll tell them, ‘Do you know who Dr. Naismith is?’ ‘Of course, I do.’ ‘You know who the first coach at Kansas was?’ ‘No.’ And you explain that.
“But Kansas is a great place because until you visit it, you can’t feel it. People that haven’t been there don’t get it because it is different.”
Still, if a kid from the East or West Coast doesn’t visit Lawrence, it’s hard to convince him to spend four years in the Heartland.
Calipari had it even tougher at Memphis. The program had traditionally recruited the city of Memphis and not much else. Calipari knew that wasn’t going to be enough.
“I just felt that if you want to be a national program,” Calipari said, “you have to recruit nationally. I’ve always said I’d like to have a team of five to six Memphis kids, and then five to six kids from around the country. It’s gotten a little less than that.”
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