March Madness: Kansas, Oregon prove different paths can lead to same place
Opposites attract when Kansas and Oregon face each other in the Elite Eight
By
Dennis Dodd
•
5 min read
KANSAS CITY, Missouri – Oregon and Kansas will meet Saturday night -- each a Power Five conference champion, each in their second consecutive Elite Eight, each 40 minutes from a Final Four.
That is where their anticipation, prospects and expectations diverge completely in the Midwest Regional final.
Blueblood Kansas expects to be in this position every season but strangely isn’t often enough for a program with that bluest of basketball blood coursing through its veins.
Oregon has established itself as a West Coast power. But in the cruelest of twists, the NCAA’s first basketball champion (in 1939) is slogging through a rather anonymous 77-year title drought.
There is at least as much trepidation for the Ducks as contemplation regarding the task ahead.
“It’s hard,” Oregon leading scorer Dillon Brooks said, “because none of us none of us have been to a Final Four.”
Neither has any current Jayhawk but that annual possibility is exactly why they came to Kansas. Saturday’s Elite Eight game will be Kansas’ 24th in its history and Self’s seventh in this 14 seasons at KU.
The Final Four would be his third at KU, but first in five years.
“It’s a hard game because there is so much emphasis on road … to … the … Final Four,” Self enunciated. “It’s almost like the Final Four could be the equivalent of the national championship 30 years ago.”
For Kansas, getting to the Final Four might not be enough. For the Ducks, their prospects of beating the top-seeded Jayhawks are hard to take seriously.
Kansas has won three tournament games by an average of 30 points. They’ve got the nation’s top recruit (Josh Jackson) playing with the Big 12’s – and possibly the nation’s – best player (Frank Mason).
Stir all that into a roiling Sprint Center, 40 miles from the KU campus.
“We all feel like we got it set up so perfect for us,” Jackson said.
“We’re going to have our little 600,” Oregon’s Dylan Ennis said of the Ducks’ cheering section.
Kansas’ media guide devotes six pages to its hall of famers and retired numbers. Oregon’s media notes this week included a paragraph on “Ducks In The D-League.”
Kansas likely has four future pros among its starting five. Oregon’s second-best rebounder and best shot blocker Chris Boucher saw his career end March 11 with a blown out knee.
“I can’t think about but it comes to you: I might never go to the Final Four but I’ll never play in March Madness again,” said Boucher, a senior who has been doomed to cheerleader duty on the bench.
“That’s what is in my head all the time. That’s one thing devastating for me.”
There are different demons for different people.
Slightly more than a week before a likely induction into the Naismith Hall of Fame, Self is judged by some by what he hasn’t done – play for and win more championships.
“I think it’s the hardest game [to win] in the tournament …,” Self said of the Elite Eight. “We haven’t experienced very much success to date in this game.”
During a run of 13 consecutive Big 12 regular-season titles, there have been only those two Final Fours for Self. That lone title was in 2008. There is still the lingering hurt from last year’s Elite Eight loss to eventual champion Villanova. Self has been to seven Elite Eight games as KU coach.
“Every year I get looser and looser … ,” he said. “The reality of it is, if kids didn’t care an awful lot they wouldn’t be in this game. It’s time to let them go.
“To me pressure is having to win and not having good guys. I would much rather deal with the expectations than not having the reality of playing at a high level.”
Just like Self, Oregon coach Dana Altman has won everywhere he has coached. Only five active head coaches have more consecutive winning seasons (20). At age 58, after stops at Marshall, Kansas State and Creighton, this is Altman’s 13th NCAA Tournament.
Given that he has led Oregon to this summit, he’s one of those best-coaches-never-to-reach-the-Final-Four types. Saturday could be the day.
For a school with an iconic swoosh as its benefactor, there isn’t much of an Oregon basketball brand outside of Eugene. What are you getting when you play the Ducks?
A school-record 32 wins, for starters. In a league that includes UCLA and Arizona, Brooks was the Pac-12 Player of the Year. The Ducks are in the Elite Eight after beating Rhode Island and Michigan by a combined four points.
“Now they’re definitely a basketball school as much as a football school,” said Kansas post Landen Lucas, a native of Portland, Oregon. “It’s hard not to automatically equate them with the football team with speed and all that stuff. But they definitely play fast and with the four guards who can all stretch you out.”
The memory of Oregon’s extended coaching search in 2010 has faded. Altman was the fourth choice – at best – after Ernie Kent was fired in 2010. The administration took 39 days to replace him.
They talked to Michigan State’s Tom Izzo, then Missouri coach Mike Anderson, Pitt’s Jamie Dixon and Butler’s Brad Stevens. They settled on Altman who has not disappointed.
Call them lucky Ducks.
Last year’s run to an Elite Eight game against Oklahoma was Oregon’s third in school history. That is, if you don’t count 1939 and 1945 when the field started with eight teams.
But the Ducks were summarily slapped down in that game by second-seeded Oklahoma. Among national player of the year Buddy Hield’s exploits that day was a distant 3-pointer just before halftime that put the Sooners up by 18.
“Honestly, I was crushed,” Brooks said.
He had Duck company. With Kobe Bryant watching and admiring.
Hield went for 37. Oklahoma won by 12 to advance to the Final Four.
That was technically an upset. The Ducks were the top seed in the West Region.
Have they finally arrived as Final Four-worthy in 2017? Once again, the Ducks are only 40 minutes away.
“I could see why people say this is the toughest one,” Ennis said.
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