It’s the All Roy, All the Time Tournament. I see, from the monitors in front of me, that Roy Williams, former Kansas coach, is being interviewed on CBS’ halftime show by Seth Davis and Clark Kellogg. Here’s a transcript that was just handed to me:
Clark: Roy, it must seem strange to watch your former team, Kansas, on the verge of winning a national championship.
Roy: Well, by gosh, I was just telling my wife, Wanda, that I really screwed up when I left Lawrence. What was I thinking? I believe Dean Smith dropped something into my iced tea the night I accepted this job.
Seth: You mean to tell me, Roy, that agreeing to coach at North Carolina was a mistake?
Roy: Did you see us play the other night. Dad gum right it was a mistake. Why do you think I’m wearing this KU emblem on my shirt?
Clark: This is unbelievable, Roy. What will the people back in Carolina think?
Roy: I don’t plan on going back. I’ve accepted the job at Southern Mississippi.
OK, the KU game is back on. Enough of my silliness.
This is cool. I’m sitting courtside (OK, three rows back) for tonight’s national championship game between Kansas and Memphis. Lucky guy, aren’t I? Kansas is just now coming out on the floor, it’s about 30 minutes until the tip. The Alamodome is going to be jammed with people and most of the crowd is pro-KU. That doesn’t mean Memphis doesn’t have its supporters. This should be a classic game. I know everybody back home _ everybody _ is excited about watching. My two dear friends, Lori and Denise from The Eagle, are out at Fox and Hounds where Denise is doing a live blog during the game. That should be fun, because Denise knows about as much about basketball as Billy Packer knows about (fill in the blank).
Oh my goodness, I just looked up to see that Ed Hightower is working this game on the officiating crew. Hightower might have been a good official back in the day, but now he’s just a pompous authority freak, in my opinion. I don’t know of a single coach who thinks Hightower is a quality official, so it amazes me that he’s working the biggest game of the year. It’s been a while since Hightower worked a championship game, I think. Why is he here now? You should plan on a long game and one in which Hightower will get a lot of television time. He likes the cameras. This is not good.
On radio today, I predicted a 73-70 Kansas win. I’m sticking with that, although most of my newspaper friends are going with Memphis. And these are people from Kansas who just don’t believe the Jayhawks stack up against Memphis’ athletes. I disagree. By the way, my friend and KU beat writer Rick Plumlee is one of those picking Memphis. His e-mail is . . . I wouldn’t do that to Rick.
We’re getting ready for the National Anthem now. The place is a little nuts. This is cool. Did I mention that?
Have fun. I’ll check back at halftime.