On cusp of Final Four, Oregon, Kansas fueled by Elite Eight losses

KANSAS CITY — Just inside the tunnel at the Sprint Center is a large video board with an unmistakable message. One graphic reads: “Road to the Final Four,” with a photo of University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The other: “This way to Phoenix,” with a giant arrow pointing directly into the arena bowl.

It will be the last thing Kansas and Oregon players see before they take the court on Saturday for the Midwest Region final – and a giant electronic reminder of just how much, finally, is at stake.

“It’s cool,” said Oregon forward Dillon Brooks of the board. “And it’s motivation – we want to go that way.” Welcome, finally, to the Elite Eight – or as Kansas coach Bill Self put it, “the hardest game of the (NCAA) tournament.” The Jayhawks believe this, from experience. And so do the Ducks. They were both in this position a year ago, 40 minutes away from the Final Four – and then headed home instead.

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“A lot of despair. Depression.” This was Brooks’ description of the locker room after Oregon was waylaid in the West Region final by a veteran Oklahoma team led by a shooting star named Buddy Hield.

A couple of hours later and a couple thousand miles away, Kansas lost to Villanova, suffocated by the Wildcats’ defense in the South Region final. In the moment, it seemed a huge upset – and then Villanova shot its way to the national championship, which probably only made things feel worse for the Jayhawks.

Kansas forward Landen Lucas spoke for both teams in Saturday’s Midwest Region final when he said, “As soon as last year ended, my whole mindset was getting back to this point, in this place. Now that we’re here in this game, this is really what I’ve been waiting for.”

So as much as anybody playing this weekend, the Jayhawks and Ducks understand what’s at stake, and they’ve experienced just how much more pressure comes along for the ride in a regional final. The season is pitched – by TV networks, by the NCAA, by everybody, as that “Road to the Final Four.”

“That Final Four,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said, “is the goal of everybody.”

In some ways, just playing on that last weekend of the season supersedes the idea of winning it all.

“It’s almost like the Final Four could be the equivalent of the national championship 30 years ago, with the type of intensity and the type of publicity that it gets,” Self said. “… If you get beat in this game, you come just that close to getting to the goal.”

Which is why even if it seems counterintuitive, the regional final might just be more pressure-filled than playing for the national title.

“The goal is to win a national championship, but certainly all the hoopla around it is (getting to) the Final Four,” Self said. “I think that may add something to it.”

Here’s something else to add: a very quick turnaround. The scheduled tipoff of 8:49 p.m. ET is less than 48 hours from the time the buzzer sounded on their Sweet 16 victories – which means very little time to prepare against potentially one of the most formidable opponents they’ve seen all season.

It’s probably helpful that Oregon and Kansas play a very similar style – four guards, free-wheeling offense, if you’ll run with them they’re ecstatic, and you soon won’t be – which makes the matchup intriguing. But if the teams are similar, the programs aren’t. The stress they’ll feel Saturday comes from different places.

Oregon won the first NCAA basketball championship, those “Tall Firs” winning an eight-team tournament in 1939. The Ducks reached the Elite Eight in 2002 and 2007, and then again last year. But they’ve never been to the Final Four in the modern era.

If that ratchets up the pressure, it’s because everyone associated with the program understands the opportunities are fleeting.

“We obviously had a good enough team (last year),” Oregon guard Casey Benson said. “Knowing we have that opportunity again, we don’t want to let it slip away because it doesn’t come around every year – well, for most people.”

Kansas isn’t most people. In describing the added pressure that attends a regional final, Self joked about his record in them: 2-6. That includes appearances while coaching at Tulsa and Illinois. But his teams are 2-4 in the Elite Eight at Kansas, where the Final Four is an annual expectation.

The Jayhawks are playing in their 28th consecutive NCAA tournament, the longest streak in hoops history. In each of the last eight seasons, Kansas has been a No. 1 or No. 2 seed. In that time, they’ve been to the Final Four once (2012).

The Jayhawks’ last national championship came in 2008. Oregon’s Brooks brought it up Friday as one of his earliest Final Four memories – which means for a program like Kansas, that’s a very long time ago.

“The thing I’ve kind of learned is that you handle expectations a lot better if you embrace ‘em,” Self said. “It’s good that people believe that we should win. That means we’ve got good players. To me, pressure is (being) expected to win and not have good guys. That’s real pressure.”

It’s a fair point. But the Midwest Region final will feature two rosters filled with good players, including plenty of veterans with experience on this stage – and a collective burning desire to reach the next. When Brooks said, “The Final Four is a different animal,” it’s likely every player on both teams nodded his head.

“There’s pressure to it,” Lucas said, “but I think having been here last year will help us.”

In the other locker room, the Ducks were saying something very similar. They’ve been thinking about that loss to Oklahoma since the buzzer sounded, ending last season – what they could or should have done to change the outcome, how they’d react if they got another chance, and so on.

“The moment is there,” Brooks said. “Guys want to relish it and try to get over the hump. … We’ve been here before. We know the mistakes we made last year and we want to win.”

Just before tipoff, the players from both teams will pass that video board, and they’ll get one more reminder of what the next 40 minutes are about.

“It’s kind of like, this is a legitimate chance, we’re really that close,” Benson said. “It really just puts into perspective how much you want to get there.”

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