Why Scot Pollard is excited about KU basketball’s NCAA draw — and potential
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Jayhawks in San Diego for Round of 64 East Regional game vs. Cal Baptist Friday.
- Scot Pollard, a San Diego native, says KU will likely draw more fans than Cal Baptist.
- Pollard urges KU to show mental toughness, offensive focus and strong defense.
Kansas basketball’s traveling party heads to balmy tourist destination San Diego, California, on Wednesday, not needing to pack even a jacket with the forecast sunny with highs in the 80s heading into Friday night’s NCAA Tournament Round of 64 game against Cal Baptist.
No doubt it’s an idyllic destination for the No. 4 seeded Jayhawks (23-10), who will have their minds on business rather than the beach as they prepare for their first-round East Regional — yes East Regional — game against the No. 13 seed Lancers (25-8) of nearby Riverside, California.
Tip is 8:45 p.m. Central at 12,414-seat Viejas Arena, home of the San Diego State Aztecs.
“There is not a finer place to live in America,” said former KU and NBA forward Scot Pollard, a graduate of San Diego’s Torrey Pines High School.
Pollard played for the Jayhawks from the 1993-94 season through the 1996-97 campaign, then in the pros 11 years.
“The only reason I paused,” he added, “is because it’s completely unaffordable now. But the weather … it’s never going to be unpleasant. The oldest joke in the world for San Diego people is, ‘What’s the weather going to be like this week? Pleasant.’
“My dad used to always joke. He’d say, ‘Son, play an indoor sport. It’s always room temperature.’ Shoot, (in) San Diego you can play an outdoor sport. It’s still room temperature,” the 51-year-old Pollard said with a laugh. “I don’t know if you can overrate that place. There’s more traffic for sure. It’s gone east. They’ve built where they can, and that’s east, but it is still not L.A. It’s still it’s own thing. I can’t say enough about how wonderful San Diego is.”
Stops at Kansas City Barbeque, a restaurant and bar in the Marina district along the Big Bay where parts of the movie “Top Gun” were filmed, and Roberto’s for the burrito should be considered spots to dine, he said, while noting Seaport Village, a waterfront destination for dining and shopping, and the downtown Gaslamp Quarter for live music and restaurants/bars are highly recommended for time spent outside the arena.
As far as what will be happening during the actual games … Pollard, a third-team Parade All-American who was recruited by San Diego State in high school, knows very little about KU’s first-round foe, Cal Baptist.
He’s unsure of how many fans of the Lancers will make the short drive — about an hour and 40 minutes — to attend Friday’s game, Cal Baptist’s first-ever appearance in the NCAAs.
The Lancers first joined Division I in July 2018 after competing as members of the Pacific West Conference at the Division II level from 2011 through the spring of 2018. The Lancers did not become eligible for Division I postseason play until the 2022-23 season.
“Honestly I’d never heard of that school before we got seeded against them on Sunday night. I was like, ‘Wow. I didn’t know that place existed,’’’ Pollard said.
“I don’t mean to demean them by any means. But I will give an example of another reason I went to Kansas. When they (KU coaches) took me to Midnight Madness on my recruiting trip in Lawrence, when it was at midnight back in the stone ages and there were 17,000 people in the arena for a practice, I don’t think I’d ever seen 17,000 people in a building ever.
“Growing up in San Diego there are games, but it’s an outdoor city. Basketball does not get the attention out there that say a beach volleyball tournament does, or baseball game or a football game, because it’s pleasant. It’s just an outdoor city. It’s fair to assume that Kansas will have more fans there than a school that is literally just down the road because we travel well, first of all. We have incredibly loyal fans nationwide, worldwide, but at the same time, I don’t know that the Cal Baptist fan base is going to be dying to go sit inside in one of the most beautiful places on the planet to be.
“I would venture to guess that if I was able to go to the game and it was a blowout the first half, I might leave and get outside,” Pollard added, laughing.
Pollard played in one game in San Diego during his KU career but it wasn’t in Viejas Arena, which opened in 1997.
The Jayhawks clobbered University of San Diego 101-71 on Dec. 9, 1995, at San Diego Sports Arena. KU’s contingent of California players performed well. The 6-foot-11, 230-pound Pollard scored 14 points on 4-of-6 shooting (6-of-8 from line) with three blocked shots and four rebounds in 23 minutes. Paul Pierce of Inglewood scored 24 points. Jacque Vaughn, a native of Pasadena, had 11 points. Jerod Haase of South Lake Tahoe hit one 3 and scored five points in the blowout.
“I remember being upset I didn’t play better. I wanted to really show off in front of my home crowd, because I did have a lot of friends and family there ...” Pollard said. “I wanted to have a very, very dominant game, because we were a top-10 team and those people had seen me play some pretty impressive high school basketball games.
“I wanted to show those fans that had watched me in high school and had seen me go on to KU say, ‘Oh well, he got a lot better.’ They saw me have more dominant performances in high school, obviously.”
Pollard, who now lives in Indiana, follows the current KU team closely.
He is hoping the Jayhawks win two in San Diego and advance to the Sweet 16 next week in Washington, D.C. If KU beats Cal Baptist, it would take on either St. John’s or Northern Iowa in Sunday’s second round.
“They really need a good performance,” he said of the Jayhawks. “They’ve got to take a temperature of their heart and their mental toughness. This team obviously has shown some Jekyll and Hyde tendencies where you beat the No. 1 team in the country (Arizona) without your best player (Darryn Peterson) and then with your best player you turn around and lose to a team you shouldn’t lose to.
“I don’t mean to blame Darryn for that. I just mean those are things that have happened. So I did not like the way we’ve played the last couple games, and that’s full strength, supposedly. So I would definitely say that this is a game it would be really nice to see Kansas come out and treat this as though it was their last game of the year, because it could be, and absolutely put on a clinic of offensive focus and defensive prowess.”
Scot Pollard’s vision for KU
Pollard said he is hoping to see a version of Kansas that he’s previously seen this year: one that can be “incredible on defense” and go on big runs.
“That’s something that this team absolutely needs to do if they want to make it past this round, but especially the second round, because if they win this game, either Northern Iowa or St. John’s is going to be a very, very tough opponent,” Pollard said. “I would love for this team’s chemistry, which again we’ve seen at times, to just click. And they’re so much fun because they have fun with each other. You see it. You see how much they love each other.
“You see this team jell on the court, and then they go on these fantastic runs, and you’re like, ‘How do you not love these guys with all the drama that’s happened?’ Whether Darryn’s going to play or not going to play?
“Yeah, I’ve been critical. I am not ashamed to say that. We’re all adults. They are adults. There’s a reason why there’s criticism. It’s because you’re playing for Kansas. You’re an adult. You’re 18 years old. You get paid to play basketball. It’s a privilege to put on that jersey, so you’re not above criticism. Call me crazy. If they can play six games in a row playing at their best, I think they can beat anybody in the country. They’ve done it. I think if they play the way they can, I think they could get to the Final Four. I’m hoping that we see on Friday night this team get past a good team that, by all measures, could be easily overlooked.”
