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Kansas coach Bill Self was jarred awake at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning with a phone call from none other than President Bush.
Self said Bush called his cell phone. He was asked how the president had his number.
“I imagine they’ve got people that can find that,” Self said with a grin.
Self will get a chance to find out all of the inner workings of the White House when the Jayhawks meet President Bush at some point in the near future.
“He said, ‘Get out here soon,’ ” Self said.
They’d love a parade
The Lawrence business community would like to throw a parade for the team and is discussing the possibility with the KU athletic department. A parade was held for the 1988 national championship team.
“They’re considering it,” said Jane Pennington, director of Downtown Lawrence Inc.
Replay this weekend
Channel 5 will show a replay of Monday’s championship game at 10:35 p.m. Saturday.
Cable outage comes at really bad time
Not everyone was ready to celebrate at the end of overtime in Monday night’s championship game.
One neighborhood in northwest Lawrence wasn’t able to see the Jayhawks’ victory. A car hit a cable box that fed the television signal to an entire neighborhood.
Officials at Sunflower Cable in Lawrence said the outage lasted only three or four minutes. But those were the final minutes of the game.
Calipari won’t beat himself up
Memphis coach John Calipari brushed off talk about missed free throws against KU as the Tigers were welcomed home by several hundred screaming fans Tuesday.
Calipari refused to blame the loss on misses by stars Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose, saying the game turned on many factors, not just free throws.
“I could have called a timeout here, a timeout there. They should have made a couple of free throws,” he said. “Maybe we don’t turn it over. Maybe we grab a rebound. Maybe we make a stop. So you can’t ... we’re not going to beat ourselves up.”
Some Heels steamed at Roy
To the dismay of many Tar Heel fans, North Carolina coach and former KU coach Roy Williams wore a Jayhawk sticker on his black shirt as he watched KU beat Memphis on Monday night.
On its Web site, The Raleigh News Observer asked fans, “Was Roy Right?” Most didn’t think he was. One response:
“It was fine to me if Roy wanted to support Kansas by cheering them on. I just think he went too far by brandishing the Jayhawk logo. That’s like losing to Duke in the ACC tournament and wearing a Blue Devils uniform at their next game! Dang it, you just don’t do that!”
But supporting Kansas wasn’t the main reason Williams stayed in town.
“The bottom line is that my son came from London and couldn’t get out till Tuesday, so I wasn’t going to leave him in San Antonio by himself,” he said.
The Jayhawks beat Carolina in the national semifinals on Saturday night.
TV ratings down from 2007
Even with a dramatic finish, Monday’s championship game couldn’t match the national TV ratings for last year’s final.
Kansas’ 75-68 overtime win over Memphis on CBS drew a fast national rating of 12.1 and a 20 share, down 8 percent from 2007. Last season’s title game, in which Florida beat Ohio State, drew a 13.2.
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