Danny Manning Has Basketball Magic In Him

Man, it feels great when your team wins a championship.

My neck is locked up, my throat is raw, I have pretzel salt in my left eye, and I think I’ve soiled my lucky boxers.

But it feels good. Damn good.

I vaguely remember the feeling from 1988, when I was a freshman at KU. Of course, that night I flew out the door of my dorm, ran around campus high fiving and hugging everyone I saw, and I don’t think I went to bed until the next afternoon.

Now that I’m a dad, I had to try not to wake up my son with my shouting, or blow out a knee jumping off the couch, but to think that I get to write the story on my Jayhawks at the end of my first season writing about college basketball on a daily basis is incredible.

I feel a serious pang for Memphis fans, because that was one hell of a team. A championship team, for certain. When Derrick Rose remembered he was Superman, and started to score, the game felt over. I’m man enough to admit that my team was lucky to get to overtime, where the loss of Dorsey to foul trouble really meant something.

Looking at the box scores, I see things that were never obvious in the flow of the game. Darrell Arthur had 20 points and 10 rebounds? Really? Pierre Niles only weighs 310 lbs? No Way!

One friend who called me said “This is how you know you’re old. You’re watching Danny Manning cut down the nets again, but he’s in a suit this time”. Which is true. Championships make those years without just water under the bridge. And speaking of water under the bridge, I have one thing to say to any of my fellow fans who are still nursing a grudge - let the Roy Williams thing go. The guy showed up wearing a Kansas pin after getting booted by his former team. That’s a class act. It’s time to let it go. And you may want to stop riding your bike past your ex-girlfriend’s house and leaving flaming bags of poop on her doorstep, too.

Let’s throw away the anger and bitterness and just enjoy the Bill-Simmons-mandated five year grace period. No bitching, no complaining, just the beatific smile that a fan gets from the perfect storm. After all, it takes a season without recruiting scandals, without season-ending injuries, and without a loss in six straight games to end up feeling this way, and in all honesty, us fans are just along for the ride. So let’s give credit where credit is due - congratulations to Bill Self (sorry, Will) and the 2008 National Champion Kansas Jayhawks.

Now, who wants to sex Sasha?