A huge part of following the tournament is getting to know the personalities of players and coaches. All of the KU players are very down to Earth. They don't come off as having big heads. Bill Self is always polite to the media. He'll give us a smile and a "What's up guys?" while he's walking down the hall.
I haven't followed UCLA at all this season, and don't know much about their coach, Ben Howland. But at media day on Friday, the impression I got wasn't necessarily a very good one. He stopped the press conference about four times to referee the media.
After just one minute in to his press conference, he interrupted UCLA guard Arron Afflalo to tell the media in the back to be quiet because they were "having a press conference, here." (Check out Afllalo's face in the video). Let me remind you that the panel is at the front of a large room with chairs for the media to ask questions from. There's only a black curtain separating it from the TV work area.
After five questions in a row that were directed to him, he had another outburst informing the media (the people who do this for a living) about the "right way" to do conduct a press conference; by asking players questions first, and then the coach so players can go back to the locker room. That was despite the fact that after this specific panel conference, the players were going to separate areas for another half hour of individual interviewing. Also, there is a moderator at each presser. It's his job to keep time and choose who will get to ask the next question. It seemed like a suggestion like that would be his job, but I could be wrong.
I had the pleasure of sitting in on a Bob Knight press conference in Oklahoma City during the Big 12 Tournament. When he's on the stand, the mood in the room just changes. Reporters are more hesitant. A reporter asked him it helped his team to get an extra day of rest. Coach Knight balked at the question and asked the reporter if he'd rather run four miles today and do it again tomorrow, or if he'd rather wait a day. He then informed the reporter he needed to get more exercise.
Coach Howland reminded me of Knight. He was open and spoke his mind. Coach Knight won't be around much longer, so could Howland fill the opening?
I've enjoyed the press conference and locker room stuff. It's content we don't usually get to see and far more entertaining than the canned jock talk quotes that are standard fare.