SAN ANTONIO — Ladies and gentlemen, please meet the four most overhyped, overrated and overcompensated men at the Final Four.
Roy Williams. Ben Howland. John Calipari. Bill Self.
These college basketball coaches are all handsome men handsomely paid. Adding up their salaries requires a trusty calculator and a fistful of zeroes. Average pay? A cool $1.57 million. Per year.
But when the games began Saturday, Williams, Howland, Calipari and Self were not much different than the 43,718 other spectators in the Alamodome, except for the fact the coaches had better seats and wore fancier clothes.
The coaches’ impact on the outcome of the semifinal contests was not worth one thin dime.
And, truth be known, that’s the beauty of basketball.
For all the mythology created about X’s and O’s, players almost always have the final word.
Or as Memphis point guard Derrick Rose said: “Going out there and hooping, that’s what it’s all about, really.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
With a 78-63 victory, Memphis turned UCLA blue, baby.
Then Kansas rocked and chalked North Carolina 84-66.
Williams is widely regarded as a heel throughout Kansas for dumping the Jayhawks to take the big money at North Carolina five years ago.
But the game is about players hitting jumpers, not vengeance against coaches.
“I never once talked about us playing against Roy Williams,” Self said.
Williams was paid a bonus of more than $80,000 merely for showing up at the Final Four with the Tar Heels.
Perhaps Williams should have stayed on the team bus.
Because 10 minutes after the opening tip, Kansas players had old Roy scratching his befuddled noggin on the Carolina bench.
During a head-spinning 31-6 run during the first half, KU guard Brandon Rush could not miss and the Jayhawks shot down any strategy Williams could have possibly devised.
“Everybody said: ‘We’re going to put ’em down,’ ” reported young freshman center Cole Aldrich, revealing the relentless, no-room-for-failure attitude employed by the Jayhawks.
So much for North Carolina star Tyler Hansbrough being the hardest-working man in the history of the basketball business. Can we please tuck it in bed and say nighty-night to that baloney?
Hansbrough does have a big heart. But he does not have the talent to match KU players Darrell Arthur, Sherron Collins or Rush.
Nobody mistakes Calipari for John Wooden. The Memphis coach, however, is a wizard at recruiting.
And, like it or not, finding players is far more crucial than teaching them.
During games, Calipari paces on his shiny shoes and shouts almost every second the Tigers are within earshot. But what does the coach do as Rose drops 25 points and nine rebounds on UCLA?
“Every once in a while, I go, ‘Oh, my,’ ” Calipari confessed, “and I kind of sit down.”
Practices are owned by coaches, and if the job is done well, players should always rule the game.
In a drawl cornier than a big pan of cornbread, Williams told a delightful story of how he celebrated the Tar Heels’ national championship in 2005.
Within 24 hours of cutting down the nets, North Carolina coaches and their spouses were back home in Chapel Hill, attending a victory dinner.
“By 10 o’clock, half the wives and half my staff had their faces down on the table because nobody had slept,” Williams recalled.
But before 6 o’clock the next morning, Williams stood in the parking lot of the basketball arena, waiting on an assistant coach to take off on a recruiting trip.
No player gets up at dawn to chase a coach.
So, ultimately, who has all the power and makes all the big shots at the Final Four?
I think you know the answer.
But we’re going to give Rose, a 19-year-old freshman who very soon will make more money in the NBA than Calipari, Howland, Self and Williams combined, the final word.
“No matter what’s going on, you call all the plays or whatever,” said Rose, capable of dominating a game like no coach ever can, “but if you’re just hooping, you got nothing to worry about.”
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
