For the first time in the Bill Self era, Kansas’ basketball players begin the NCAA Tournament in a locale surrounded by scenic snowcapped mountains.
“Everybody … enjoy the fresh air,” Self, KU’s 16th-year coach, said to reporters at 5 p.m. local time Tuesday — when the Jayhawks’ team bus arrived at the downtown Hilton Center Hotel after a short, picturesque ride from Salt Lake City International Airport to the designated KU team headquarters for the 2019 NCAA Tournament.
“I saw my mountains. They are my mountains,” said Self, who recently snapped some photos of the mountains on a recruiting trip to Mount Pleasant, Utah.