Self and Players Step Up! National Champions!
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First… congratulations to Coach Self, our team, our school, and our fans! This was so needed for many reasons, not the least being the shaft we received 2 years ago for canceling our deserved run in March.
How did this happen?
Were we just lucky? Obviously no! Last night’s comeback shows just how good this team can be and had to be to bring home the trophy. But we can’t deny the luck we had along the way and I scratch my head wondering if the basketball Gods in AFH, or Bill Self Sr., pulled some strings from up above. Not only did we avoid injury throughout our March run, but we also benefited from other players going down and big upsets along our path. We even benefited in our final seconds as Bacot went down, turning the ball over and being done when his team needed him most. So many things happened in our path to this championship it is hard not to think someone upstairs didn’t pull a switch or two. I wonder if we might expect a new NCAA investigation into this one, draped in conspiracy theory and stretch out for another 20 years or so.
Self vindication? Hell yes! Gone are those critics saying Self can’t bring home another trophy. Gone are those critics saying Self can’t coach the big game. Personally, I’m giving the MVP award on this championship to Bill Self. He was a different man in this tournament than from the previous March tours. He was a lot more positive and had pure gratefulness for just being in the tourney. His poise was off-the-charts and it had to be the main ingredient for how our team stayed poised, including capping off the evening with the biggest halftime comeback in NCAA tournament history. I’ve never seen Bill smile more in March than he did this year. Listen to what he said to his troops at halftime last night, after being down by 15, another NCAA record lopsided score. He stayed poised. Listen to Big Dave’s comments after the game… he stayed poised. Bill is a different man after losing his father. I lost my father last year, too, and I know how different I am. Bill is, too. And it played out last night.
Comparing championships? I’m not sure I like comparing our championships at the threat that we minimalize any of them. But heck… we are sports fans and everything gets analyzed and compared. I wasn’t around for our 1952 championship so maybe others can comment. I did experience 1988, 2008, and now 2022. All three of these games are colossal storylines deserving special recognition. Even Self brought history into his locker room last night by asking his players… would they rather be down by 15 at half, or 9 with two minutes left in the game! I have to give credit for 2008 being the game where we had the biggest burst move to take the championship! I have to give the 1988 game kudos for creating “the legend” Danny Manning and how he carried his team on his shoulders to a championship over a heavily-favored OU team. But this team… this team’s storyline is only beginning to be told. Each player stepped up in their individual way to be a part of this! Never was the load so well distributed. Break down the game last night and you can point to so many plays by differing players that were “life or death.” Bill mentioned togetherness was their strength.
We may not own the record for most National Championships but no other school can claim as much March Magic as we possess! What stands out now… our book is yet to be written because we have so many chapters left to experience!
Love to everyone, and after more celebration lets start our next chapter of magic!
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Awesome post. Rock Chalk @drgnslayr
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Great post! As much crap as Self has gotten over the years for being too tight or not getting the team ready or waiting too long in a game to make adjustments, this was his coaching all the way. The adjustments, the poise, the play calling to get the team going, it was a coaching masterpiece and will give him so much confidence in the future tournaments. The players played their hearts out. But it also shows, how much has to go your way to get the six wins. We’ve had too many years where we were the best team and someone else cut the nets; it feels good to finally get the breaks to reward the hard work by the team when they are not the clear number one in the country. Let’s get a couple more before too long. Can’t wait for next season to start!
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Hey, does anyone have reference to an article that talks about the hardships that DaJuan overcame growing up? I heard Coach Self mention it a couple weeks ago and am interested in knowing about that. Coach said that when he was talking about how much the Braun family has helped DaJuan.
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IMO, this was Selfs best coaching job to date. He was totally prepared with how to handle when things get tight in the tournament and he delivered in a big way.
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@SlickRockJayhawk https://www.heartlandcollegesports.com/2022/04/02/bill-self-admits-who-is-favorite-player-is-on-his-team/
This isn’t the best, the better one is the Kc star, I’ve used up my stories, but goggle it and you should be able to get it. It’s heart breaking. What a wonderful mom Lisa Braun is!
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@Crimsonorblue22 you can easily read all star articles for free. Open them in a private browser window if you need help with this lmk
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@Crimsonorblue22 Awesome, thanks!
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@BShark said in Self and Players Step Up! National Champions!:
@Crimsonorblue22 you can easily read all star articles for free. Open them in a private browser window if you need help with this lmk
I try this on my phone with the sports articles and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Any idea why mostly Jesse’s stuff is TOTALLY blocked or is that just me doing something dumb?
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I still have the ku hoops app and I get that.
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@benshawks08 said in Self and Players Step Up! National Champions!:
@BShark said in Self and Players Step Up! National Champions!:
@Crimsonorblue22 you can easily read all star articles for free. Open them in a private browser window if you need help with this lmk
I try this on my phone with the sports articles and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Any idea why mostly Jesse’s stuff is TOTALLY blocked or is that just me doing something dumb?
I’m using a pc web browser when I do it so I can’t really troubleshoot.
The reason that it works on kcstar is that you can view x free articles a month and the browser treats it like a new visit each time. Anything that requires the subscription to read and doesn’t give some free views it won’t work.
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Media bias? Well… on the homepage of USAToday’s Men’s College Basketball… we still didn’t make the main story. Wow!!
This is just one of the sports media outlets I have battled with for more than a decade to show us some love. Throughout the year, we were invisible on their men’s basketball page.
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@FarSideHawk Welcome back!
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@drgnslayr said in Self and Players Step Up! National Champions!:
Media bias? Well… on the homepage of USAToday’s Men’s College Basketball… we still didn’t make the main story. Wow!!
This is just one of the sports media outlets I have battled with for more than a decade to show us some love. Throughout the year, we were invisible on their men’s basketball page.
And this surprises you how my friend ?
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Wish I could go out to Forbes to welcome the guys home when they land here in Topeka BUT there is just no way. I can’t stand for any extended amount of time with this dam pinched cyactic nerve and these ruptured discs I have couldn’t stand having to stand stationary for that length of time surrounded pushed and crowed by others dammit. - wish I could hurry up get this surgery over with - -But I’ll be there in spirit - - ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BAY
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I hope surgery helps your condition!
Yes… I’m not surprised at media bias… though I will never stop fighting back, and much of what I can do is make people aware. We talk about it often… but sometimes it needs to be shown.
We may be a blue blood… but we will always have to swim upstream because of media and profit in media markets. We will always have a level of underdog in us just for this reason. Meanwhile… there are so many Jayhawk fans throughout the world, I believe we dominate much of the planet with followers! RCJH!
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@BigBad did you know b turner lost his 12 yr old brother in a wreck last weekend? His other bro is still in hospital
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@drgnslayr said in Self and Players Step Up! National Champions!:
I hope surgery helps your condition!
Yes… I’m not surprised at media bias… though I will never stop fighting back, and much of what I can do is make people aware. We talk about it often… but sometimes it needs to be shown.
We may be a blue blood… but we will always have to swim upstream because of media and profit in media markets. We will always have a level of underdog in us just for this reason. Meanwhile… there are so many Jayhawk fans throughout the world, I believe we dominate much of the planet with followers! RCJH!
Your right and even last night there was or seem to be last night MORE about North Carolina & Hubert Davis being the 1st Coach in his initial yr winning a Championship & all about Bacot ya , da ya, da , ya , ya. It’s always going to be about - - KENTUKY - - or DUKE IN THE MEDIA’S EYES
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I know many people don’t like the brashness of Sir Charles Barkley… But I’m not one of those people. He “calls 'em as he sees 'em” and then adds some Sir Charles attitude.
When the rest of the crew had basically given Kansas their last rites at halftime, Sir Charles expressed some anger how we blew the first half but didn’t give up on us and doubled-down with his prediction of a Jayhawk victory by letting the crew know there was still a second half to be played!
Then when KU made the historic comeback, Sir Charles was there to drive home the message to Kenny Smith, who clearly has a problem with Kansas, beyond being a Tar Heel.
Enjoy this story and watch the clip! Priceless!
Karma is a MF, and Kansas dealt out some big time karma last night!
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Now this makes the interminable wait for next season a whole lot easier… always kinda hated this part of the year, watching someone else win and realizing we got 7 MONTHS to wait til the start of next season … I’ve already watched the game twice … maybe a few more, or 3 or 10?
I can only hope this helps recruiting
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@drgnslayr the only thing I dislike they don’t even know how to pronounce our names. How many times have the watched our games? Absolutely no research, just show up.
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How many teams can say that they have 2 brothers who played and who each were on a team that won a NATTY?
Pretty sure this has never happened before at KU:
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@drgnslayr oh I missed that clip of Charles dancing, awesome!!
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https://twitter.com/rockchalkblog/status/1511405705017896964?s=21&t=2crIqilujz0kEX_G-XYiaQ
Giving Bill his due!
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@drgnslayr - apparently Kenny Smith hasn’t posted to Twitter for 3 days. Based on the look on his face, he’s taking this loss pretty hard.
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You know… I’m really not a hater of Kenny Smith… I think I’m just like Sir Charles and I don’t buy into his BS. Kenny just needs to be more straightforward. It’s okay if he doesn’t love Kansas and some other teams. He always makes Charles sound so refreshing because Charles doesn’t mince his words.
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@drgnslayr said in Self and Players Step Up! National Champions!:
You know… I’m really not a hater of Kenny Smith… I think I’m just like Sir Charles and I don’t buy into his BS. Kenny just needs to be more straightforward. It’s okay if he doesn’t love Kansas and some other teams. He always makes Charles sound so refreshing because Charles doesn’t mince his words.
I met Kenny down here in Houston years ago. They had a local sports show on a radio station back then, and Kenny would do a remote from a bar called S.R.O. Kenny was a nice guy, actually.
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This look by Danny is so awesome!
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@drgnslayr I was at the 1952 championship game, my first in person exposure to Ku BB. Have been a fan ever since. Clyde was an absolute monster and KU won easily. Last night was a really emotional rolly coaster. I was at the 1957 game and was devastated by the loss.
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Oh man… thank you for sharing that! If there is anything else you feel like posting… or photos… please bless us all with that! RCJH!
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Beating UNC last night was the lift that I waslooking for to ease the pain of that loss. To be honest I am still shaking
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I can only imagine. I bet that was a rough game and they played a physical game against the big dipper. True?
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@drgnslayr I probably have photos but they are not dgital so I have no idea how to post them. I have one of me on top of the Superdome that I wanted to post but it too was not digital
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In the least, you can always take your phone camera or digital photo camera and take a new photo of your printed photos. Might take a few times because you want to keep the glare down. We aren’t historians… just fans… so anything from the 50s is absolutely golden in here!
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@drgnslayr Yes it was, and there are probably a fw cuss words still imprinted on the walls of the old Memoriol colosium if it stil exists
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I have a few tough memories from Memorial… and I never liked that venue anyways. Felt like prison ball.
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@drgnslayr I thought it was a lot better venue than the Superdome. Have been in the Superdome and can’t imagine watching the game from the top row of seats
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@RockChalkinTexas IDK about brothers but I think we need to recruit some more BVNW players.
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@drgnslayr One of the really emotional things about the 1957 loss was Louie Armstrongs band playing at a dance in the student union when the team walked in. As you may know, Armstrong rarely played “When the Saints Come Marching in” except on very special occasions. When he saw the team, he immediately stopped the band and started the song. The place went bonkers and ther were very few dry eyes.
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I hear you… I’ve watched from the Superdome. Only place I thought was worse was the Silverdome for the Pistons long ago. Nosebleed and binoculars…
If you ever get a chance… take in a Miami Heat game in the FTX Arena. It is very well-designed and with the big screen help, a joy at whatever level. I swear I’d eat spaghetti off the floor of their bathrooms. I’ve never experienced a bathroom that clean before and took photos to prove it.
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@drgnslayr Beautiful building. Hope to see it some day
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@jessejayhawk If you don’t mind me asking, how old were you when you saw the 1952 game?
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Let’s guess! 18?
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8?
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@Bosthawk 17
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@wissox I wish
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Remy and Bill was a perfect 1 year thing. No way they survive each other for 4 years lol.
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Would have loved to see it though. Seems like they really figured it out when it mattered
