Las Vegas Sun

By Ron Kantowski · March 21, 2008 · 5:38 PM

It's Friday, and Omaha is open for business. But if your body clock is still on West Coast time, you must plan your day carefully, or they'll be sweeping the floors before you have had a chance to order dinner.

--- First, about last night. After the Fullerton-Wisconsin game, I grabbed my pullover windbreaker -- not nearly enough outerwear at night here -- and was sprinting through the lobby hoping to catch a steak sandwich in the market district a few blocks away when I nearly was called for a charging foul on the Miami Heat's Pat Riley. He apparently was here to scout USC's O.J. Mayo or K-State's Michael Beasley or the half-frozen Omaha Steaks at the airport when four Kansas fans, still rocking and chalking and Jayhawking with their feet propped up on beer coolers the size of horse troughs, asked Riley if he would stop for a picture. "No," Riles said, continuing toward the elevator as if his sartorially splendid suit jacket needed pressing. Then a security guard told the Kansas fans to get those coolers out of the lobby, that there was a Motel 6 in Council Bluffs they could take them to. Omaha, I have found, is very accepting of a lot of things. But apparently it draws the line at beer coolers the size of horse troughs in the lobby.

--- One more leftover from Thursday. CBS' Clark Kellogg picked Kent State against the Rebels, then went on TV before the second flurry of games and said he had gotten all of his early predictions correct. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

--- Kansas coach Bill Self was talking to every reporter from Topeka to Hays when a big roar went up on the other side of the interview room curtain where the (sort of) working press was knocking out the column inches. Had the pulled pork sandwiches finally arrived? No, there are no free pulled pork sandwiches for the media on the day between games. But there was a buzzer-beating basket in overtime by that kid from Western Kentucky, and that even got the stoic (sort of) working press excited.

--- Self took exception to one of those guys from Topeka or Hays prefacing a question about the Rebels by saying that on paper, the game appeared to be a rematch. "It will not be," said the Self-made coach. "I don't see it on paper the same way you see it. I just see it's going to be two very good teams playing each other. We've got a good record and our seed's higher. But it's more about can we defend them and can they defend us and vice versa." Then Self said he had to go, that he had to make reservations for Detroit for next week. (Not really.)

--- Self followed Lon Kruger as coach at Illinois and even adopted some of his offensive sets. "When I got the job at Illinois (when Kruger went to the NBA as coach of the Hawks) we had what we run offensively and I wanted a secondary thing to run. And the guys liked what he did so we ran what they ran. A, I didn't have to teach it. And B, they liked it." But C, Self actually owes more to another former UNLV coach than he does to Kruger. Remember when Bill Bayno's UNLV team was drilled 89-62 in the first round of the 2000 NCAA tournament? It was Self who was coaching the Golden Hurricane.

--- There's a good chance that if Kansas State can upset Wisconsin in Saturday's first game, there will be a lot more people cheering for UNLV in the second one. For starters, Rebels coach Lon Kruger was a basketball legend at K-State and later was its head coach. Secondly, K-State fans hate KU -- and vice versa. "They'd probably like to get KU out of the bracket more than they'd like to cheer for us," Kruger said.

--- Hard to believe it has been 20 years since Kansas won the NCAA championship -- and that it hasn't won it since with all those great teams and players. But had the ball bounced a little differently, all those writers from Topeka to Hays might be asking Kruger about that one shining moment instead. One actually did ask Kruger about it, probably because he was coaching K-State that year and the Wildcats and Jayhawks met four times. They split the regular-season series, K-State won in the Big Eight semifinals and Kansas won when it counted most, 71-58 in the Midwest Regional final at Pontiac, Mich. "I don't mind at all reliving those memories, maybe that one game perhaps," Kruger said of his best K-State team that finished 25-9 and was led by Mitch Richmond, who went to star in the NBA, and Steve Henson, now one of Kruger's assistants with the Rebels.

--- Geez, now San Diego, the one without the State in its name that, unlike the one with the State in its name, plays good defense, just beat UConn in overtime with a last-second shot. I wish I were in Tampa, for more reasons than one.

--- One thing Omaha leads Tampa in: Heisman Trophy winners: Did you know this city has produced two

of them as well as a pro football Hall-of-Famer?

Johnny Rodgers and Eric Crouch both played at Nebraska; Gale Sayers was born in Omaha before going on to become a Comet at Kansas and a legend in Chicago.

--- Here's one thing you never want to hear if you're cheering for a major college power during the NCAA tournment: A frenzied crowd, following by a CBS announcer yelling that such and such is the pride of such and such conference. Especially if such and such conference has the word "Sun" in it. Western Kentucky? Sun Belt Conference. Belmont, which nearly beat Duke Thursday night? Atlantic Sun.

--- Think here's any chance commissioner Craig Thompson would consider a temporary name change to "Mountain Sun Conference" just to help the Rebels out a little bit?

--- Well, in the immortal words of REO Speedwagon, it's time for me to fly. A sports writer pal just called and said he was going to catch the shuttle across the river to Council Bluffs, and I'm actually thinking about joining him. When you are thinking about going to Iowa to have a good time, it's time to fly.