One year ago, Danny Manning was named one of the top 15 players in the 75-year history of the NCAA tournament. Friday night in San Diego, Calif., Manning will add a third dimension to his tournament portfolio as head coach at Tulsa when the 13th seeded Golden Hurricane take on No. 4 UCLA.
Just hours before his first NCAA game as a head coach, Manning’s alma mater will play its second-round game against Eastern Kentucky in St. Louis. And Manning’s son, Evan, is a sophomore walk-on with the Kansas Jayhawks. Unless the Jayhawks have an enormous lead at the end of the game, it isn’t likely that Evan will get any game time.
But it’s still a huge day for the Mannings.
Earlier this week, Danny was asked where Julie Manning – his wife and Evan’s mother – would be.
“She’ll be with me,” Manning said with a laugh. “But she’ll be there, in spirit, with our son. She is his biggest fan and he knows that. It’s just a unique situation. Both teams are fortunate to be playing at this time of year. We’re looking forward to all the excitement that surrounds it.”
Evan Manning has been experience strong feelings of pride this week as well, he told the Lawrence Journal World.
Danny Manning, the most outstanding player in the 1988 Final Four when Kansas beat Oklahoma for the national championship, is in his second season as Tulsa’s head coach. He also won a national championship in 2008 as an assistant coach under Bill Self at Kansas.
In nine seasons under Self it became obvious that Manning was developing his coaching skills and would one day become a head coach. He left the Jayhawks after their run to the Final Four in 2012 and led Tulsa to a 17-16 record on his first season.
Tulsa was picked to finish in the middle of Conference-USA this season and started the season 0-4 and 1-6, including consecutive losses to Creighton and Wichita State. But the Golden Hurricane heads into the UCLA game with an 11-game winning streak and the C-USA tournament title.
Back in October, Manning had said his non-conference schedule would leave Tulsa “battled tested.” Tulsa was 4-9 after losing to Maryland on Dec.29.
“Yeah, there were a lot of other adjectives we were using at that point,” Manning said. “But one thing about our guys; their spirit never changed. It never wavered. They came into practice each and every day wanting to get better and trying to figure out how they could get better as individuals and as a team.
“We fought through some discomfort, fought through some adversity and we grew as a group. Things worked out very well for us. A lot of times, we as coaches make plans and you try to foresee what’s going to happen in the future. None of us are always right. We got lucky with the way we finished after the start of our season being so rocky. We learned from it.”
Tulsa departs Conference-USA and will head to the American Athletic Conference next season. Manning viewed this is a key transition season. Louisville leaves the American, but UConn, Memphis and Cincinnati will remain.
“I like to think this [NCAA] experience is going to benefit us in the American conference,” Manning said. “I had a chance to watch a lot of games this year. Every one of their games was on television. It’s a very talented league. There’s a lot of parity.
“I’m still in awe and shock that Coach [Larry] Brown’s SMU team did not get in [the NCAA field] after being ranked in the Top 25 earlier this year.”
Tulsa is led by sophomore guard James Woodard, who averages 15.7 points and 5.8 rebounds. Manning and the Golden Hurricane will have to find a way to contain UCLA star Kyle Anderson.
Twenty years ago, 12th seeded Tulsa upset No. 5 UCLA 112-102 in the first round and advanced to the regional semifinals before losing to eventual national champ Arkansas. UCLA coach Steve Alford has lost his first NCAA game three times in six tournament appearances. A Tulsa upset seems unlikely but the madness has already been evident in this tournament.
And Manning has learned his lessons from two national championship coaches in Brown and Self. Manning said Brown was “big” on his own team’s execution and Self’s teams are “always tough and hard nosed defensively and that’s the mentality we’ve tried to adopt as well.”
“Preparation,” Manning said when asked what he has learned from those two masters. “A lot of times you go into situations like this and you have to prepare for your opponent and get your scouting report ready. But you also had to make sure you stay sharp and stay crisp. That’s something that has stuck with me.”
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