No Place Like Kansas

Roy Williams could have gone to North Carolina.

Nick Collison might have been a Detroit Piston.

Kirk Hinrich could have been cashing checks from Donald T. Sterling (whew!).

Kansas is packing bags for the Final Four this week because a coach and his two senior stars fought off basic instincts and maybe even the prevailing wisdom.

No one knows where Kansas basketball would have ended up had this terrific trio gone separate ways, although it certainly would not have been in New Orleans this week to face Marquette in one NCAA tournament national semifinal game.

Winning a national title has become a delicate art form, as much about nuance and components and timing as it is about talent.

There are two schools of thought on this: One, you recruit spectacular talent and hope you can cut down a net before your one-and-out superstar(s) turn pro.

Syracuse and Carmelo Anthony fit this profile.

The other is a “hold-it-together” strategy, that is, try to fend off the NBA long enough to end up with enough senior leadership to mount a title drive (Read: Michigan State in 2000).

In rare cases, such as Kansas, the ride is such a hoot no one wants to jump off.

The bond Williams shares with his senior stars has proven to be stronger than duct tape.

Collison, the team’s locomotive power forward, and Hinrich, the hummingbird shooting guard, both spurned the NBA last year to complete their senior seasons.

Kansas made the Final Four last year, losing to Maryland, so few would have blamed the players for punching out of college a year early.

“I felt we had unfinished business,” Hinrich said of his decision to stay.

Collison had a more unusual response.

“I didn’t want to leave yet,” he said. “It’s a lot of fun playing at Kansas.”

It is not a stretch to suggest that Williams might be coaching Tar Heels if not for Collison and Hinrich.

Three years ago, Williams was called home for the North Carolina job as the logical heir to Dean Smith and his office-temp successor, Bill Guthridge.

Williams agonized a week before saying no.

In the end, Williams couldn’t bail out on his then-freshmen -- Collison, Hinrich and Drew Gooden.

Williams confessed he had just about had it with college basketball recruiting until he recruited these three guys.

“I didn’t have to talk to summer league coaches, agents, hangers-on,” Williams said. “You talked to mom and dad and boy.”

His faith restored, how could Williams leave?

Three years later, only Gooden was sucked up early into the NBA vortex, leaving Kansas after his junior season.

But even Gooden was reluctant.

“Drew was the fourth pick in the draft [by Memphis], but he struggled like crazy because he liked it at Kansas so much,” Collison said. “It was hard for him to leave.”

Collison and Hinrich accepted the risk of turning down guaranteed millions even though Collison got queasy watching Miami tailback Willis McGahee, a sure top-10 NFL draft pick, blow out his knee in the fourth quarter of the Fiesta Bowl this year.

“It is a risk,” Collison said. “That’s why I considered it [leaving for the NBA] seriously last year. I didn’t want to leave, but I considered it seriously. It’s a dream since you’re 9 years old and you have a chance to make that dream come true. Tough to not take it. But in long run, I hope I’ll be better off.”

Kansas has been better off, although it didn’t look that way at first.

There had to be nagging doubts when Kansas started the season 3-3, then lost power forward Wayne Simien to a season-ending shoulder injury.

What, really, had Collison and Hinrich come back for?

Kansas, though, finally got its season kick-started and began the methodical march to New Orleans.

Collison thinks the season started turn with a Dec. 11 victory at Tulsa.

Others point to Collison’s monster 24-point, 23-rebound game against Texas on Jan. 27, only two days after Arizona routed Kansas at Allen Field House.

Williams knows, as a coach, he may never hit pay dirt like this again.

In Collison and Hinrich -- Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside -- Kansas boasts a sturdy center and a sharpshooting guard, sort of a scaled-down college version of the Lakers’ Shaq and Kobe.

Dependable?

Collison has played in 140 consecutive games, and Hinrich has started 103 of the last 105.

The key to it all was Williams seizing on a weak moment to steal both players out of Iowa.

Both stars may have stayed in state had Iowa State not lost Tim Floyd to the NBA’s Chicago Bulls or had Iowa not been transitioning out of the Tom Davis era.

Williams got ready-made products in Collison and Hinrich, both sons of high school basketball coaches.

“They’ve sat around the table and heard what coaches say,” Williams said. “They understand the game. They understand making sacrifices for the good of the whole team.”

Collison and Hinrich were co-Iowa players of the year.

Collison played for tiny Iowa Falls, coached by his dad, Dave. In Nick’s sophomore season, Iowa Falls lost a basketball game to Mt. Pleasant. Collison was so upset with his performance he tacked the box score to his wall. Iowa Falls went 52-0 the next two seasons.

Collison is arguably the most fundamentally sound player in the college game, a 6-foot-9 man who can shoot effectively with either hand.

As a child, he remembers his dad coming home from work and complaining about selfish players who didn’t want to work to become better players.

“As a kid, you’re like, ‘I’m not going to be like that,’ ” Collison said. “You grow to despise those kids. I was like the [team] manager, and I’m getting on the kids. I’m like the ball boy, the water boy.”

The benefits of growing up a coach’s son?

“It’s just like osmosis, it just kind of sinks in,” he said of basketball knowledge. “After all those years you sit at practice and cheer on the side and you pick up a lot of things.”

Hinrich starred at Sioux City West while playing for Jim, his father. Kirk played one division up from Iowa Falls, in 4A, so Collison and Hinrich never faced each other in high school.

Hinrich, an athletic 6-3 guard, said his dad still coaches him, “but nowhere near as much as my mom Nancy does. I always listen to what my dad says, and try to take something from what he says. That’s who I learned from. That’s why I’m here. He’ll throw in pointers here and there and thoughts.

“But with my mom, she’s always trying to motivate me, all the time. Every time I talk to her, she’s trying to get me going.”

Hinrich and Collison are almost like graduate student coaches on the floor.

Williams said he has complete trust in his seniors.

Collison and Hinrich proved in two West Regional games how much they cover each other’s back.

In a 69-65 victory against over Duke, Collison was all but unstoppable with a 33-point, 19-rebound effort. Hinrich, though, had only two points and missed eight of nine shots.

Two days later, the roles were reversed. Arizona stifled Collison with a 1-3-1 zone, and he finished with eight points.

But Hinrich picked his partner up, scoring 28 points in a 78-75 victory.

“I knew he had more heart and guts than anyone I’ve ever played with or seen,” Collison said of his teammate.

Hinrich said: “If I was going to go down, I was going to go down firing.”

For Kansas, it’s four NCAA games down and two to go.

Two games and two stars.

With Collison and Hinrich, Kansas has to like its chances.