Texas has never won an NCAA basketball championship -- the Abe Lemons-coached 1978 Longhorns grabbed an NIT crown when the New York tournament was still big -- but has reached the status of live long shot in March Madness.
Gonzaga has worn that mantle for years. Way back there, a family member one night asked the school's location -- Spokane, Washington, which also happens to be the hometown of Bing Crosby, she was told. Mark Few's team hasn't found a glass slipper that will fit in April but don't sell him short.
Some may ask the same about Marquette (Milwaukee), which won the 1977 NCAA title in Al McGuire's last game as coach before joining Dick Enberg and Billy Packer to form a trinity of NBC broadcasters.
Duke has been around long enough, and certainly won enough championships, for many to know that it's in Durham, N.C., in close proximity to in-state rivals North Carolina, N.C. State and Wake Forest. Franklin Street in Chapel Hill is the place to be, if not in Dean E. Smith Center, on game night at UNC.
Texas made its mark on college athletics through football with Darrell Royal's Longhorns winning three national titles and Mack Brown's 2005 team, led by the wondrous Vince Young, beating USC in an epic Rose Bowl final. The Longhorns have slipped a notch, now trying to find their way back under Steve Sarkisian, but seem to pull up four-leaf clovers in picking basketball coaches.
Rick Barnes led Texas to the NCAA Final Four, producing current NBA great Kevin Durant, and has Tennessee seeded highly in this year's tournament, which begins Thursday. Shaka Smart might not have topped out in Austin but the one-time whiz at Virginia Commonwealth has Marquette in the championship discussion.
Chris Beard left for Austin after taking Texas Tech to the final weekend, earlier extracting a once-in-a-lifetime season for UALR. Beard, his personal life in reported disarray and seeing his UT run curtailed, signed Monday as the new coach at Ole Miss. Hoop interest in Oxford is next to nothing in most seasons but the Rebels have come across a hot coach if everything else with Beard is in working order.
Which brings us back to that football factory on the Colorado River, where the eyes of Texas are upon you all the live-long day. Rodney Terry may be working himself into the full-time job after replacing Beard. The 26-8 Longhorns are ranked below Kansas in the national top 10 but scored two late-seasons wins over the Jayhawks, including Saturday in the Big 12 championship game in Kansas City, usually a safe place for Bill Self's team -- but with the coach receiving hospital treatment during the tournament.
Self, seeking a repeat national title and third in Lawrence, has the top-seeded team in the West Regional and plays Howard in the first round Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa. With a second-round game almost sure against Arkansas or Illinois, Self could be matched Saturday against a school he might have coached or one that he did coach.
Some hold to the belief that with a favorable gesture from Arkansas, he might be in Fayetteville now. His name came up during the fallout after Nolan Richardson's enforced exit in 2002. The Razorbacks, near the end of Frank Broyles' Victorian run as athletic director and then known as a meddler in all sports, settled for Stan Heath to replace Richardson and then John Pelphrey, two uninspired choices. Mike Anderson kept that trend going until he, like the three before him, was fired.
Self, now 60, coached at Tulsa and Illinois before succeeding Roy Williams at Kansas. Coming to a school that lost to Syracuse in the finals in Williams' last game before Roy returned to North Carolina, Self has two NCAA titles (one more than John Calipari and Nolan Richardson) and continues the KU basketball tradition started by Phog Allen and extended by Larry Brown.
The Jayhawks won the 2008 title when Memphis went stone cold at the free-throw line and an unheralded Mario Chalmers hit a "miracle" 3 to force overtime against a Calipari-coached team. Calipari returned the favor in 2012 at Kentucky, beating Kansas on a Monday night in April -- another breaking sports item that day concerned Arkansas football coach Bobby Petrino and a fateful motorcycle accident.
Kansas rallied in the second half to win the 2022 NCAAs against a North Carolina team that ended Coach K's career at Duke two nights earlier. The Tar Heels, preseason No. 1 this year, did not make the field of 68 announced Sunday.
Self recruits top talent, keeps Allen Fieldhouse packed and jumping and is settling into legacy time with another team capable of winning it all. As for Arkansas thinking it might have had him, a Kansas basketball coach isn't likely to relocate in Fayetteville. Razorback fans might as well learn to live with that.