NEW ORLEANS, La. — Greg Gurley gets asked about it all the time.
“Hey, you going to New Orleans? Are you gonna spit in the river?” Gurley said recounting fan's questions to him. “I guess.”
What Gurley, the Jayhawks’ radio analyst and former player, is referring to is Roy Williams’ habit of spitting in the Mississippi River.
Gurley still remembers the time the team spit in the Mississippi in 1993 before the Final Four.
“We had done it in St. Louis the week before when we beat Cal and Indiana,” Gurley said. “And then we got here [to New Orleans] and we kind of drove through this industrial area, got to a bank by the river, we went down and spit in the river.”
Unfortunately, despite going ahead with the spitting, it didn't quite work out in New Orleans.
“It worked in St. Louis. It didn't work here," Gurley said.
It’s true. The Jayhawks lost in the Final Four that year to North Carolina.
But it was a tradition that dated all the way back to 1982 when North Carolina won the NCAA title in New Orleans with Michael Jordan hitting the championship game-winning shot.
Roy Williams was an assistant on the team.
“When you're 18-22 years old and your coach is all about it, you probably thought it was corny, yeah,” Gurley said. “But then you think, ‘If Michael Jordan did it and they won, it can't hurt.'"
